The Motive

Not a single story on internet about this case. Why have there not been any relative, friend or someone on prison that talking about this boy. If you find the people in this documentary you will find that they are actors.

One episode would have been enough.

A 14 year old boy who without compassion, empathy, care or regret murdered his mother, father and two sisters shooting them at point blank range. He later re-enacts what he did with the same gun to police, standing at the same spot and showing them how he shot the gun into their heads.

The archival footage is interesting, but you don't learn anything other than what happened with interviews from the boy's defence attorney who clearly enjoys telling the interviewer "I know something you don't know, but I'm not going to tell you" - what a load of nonsense. He would be better off having a bath/shower, then shaving or trimming his beard.

An interesting case which starts to become dull.

The case seems to be very interesting, this documentary isn't. Nothing missed if skipped.

There is one minute of interview and one minute of old photos and filmed scenes. Some of these scenes are not even real but staged. This alternation between information and footage continues for 4 ours. And even some of the interviews could be skipped completely and it wouldn't change the documentary to the bad.

'Investigative' journalists who don't know how to ask questions. A teenager could do better. Some of the interviews are like this (seriously like this): Interviewee: 'I know some details' Journalist: 'but you want tell me?' Interviewee: 'no' ... 5 seconds slience Journalist: 'if you tell me, would i understand more?' Interviewee: 'yes' ... 10 seconds silence Journalist: 'wow' ... cut WTF was this?!?!

A boy is killing his family, OK, I got that. I don't even care about the reason, the motive, but they say nothing about family, the sisters, the mother, they say a bit about the father and that's all. It's all about this person who did a terrible crime. A psychopath, most probably. I even found the Police investigation, crash, bang, boom.

Nothing on Google about it which is very strange, like it never existed.

2 stars.

Ah, and that music is annoying, not saying about playing same images over and over again, they could do this documentary in one hour.

The biggest issue I have with this docuseries is the interview process - or at least what's visible to us. The questions are closed-ended or loaded with preconceptions or not provocative enough. It's like just seeking confirmation for whatever the interviewees had planned to say. A good interviewer should be both provocative and able to put people at ease so that interviewees would reveal more of what they're thinking/feeling (there are a few brief moments in which they managed to do that, but the rest of the interview is just a disappointment).

Also, they should always press for something more concrete from the interviewees, especially those considered to be experts or authorities - there's a lot of flowery language and swelling emotions, but not much substance. Like the lawyer who thinks he knew the motive, sure, but maybe wonder why his opinion holds any weight as he's not a psychiatrist? Or how he drew his conclusions? Or the psychiatrist, who admitted we have better understanding of mental states now than before, sure, what are the developments? What are the studies, terminologies, examples, etc? What are the philosophies on children crimes, mental health, family dynamics, military, gun control, Israeli state at that time, etc?

For me, there are two possible reasons why he could've committed such heinous crimes - one influenced by external forces, and the other internal. External forces could be: abuses sustained by him or any of his family members (little evidence of that), delirium caused by rage or any extreme emotion (not found), or brain tumours (for example, see Charles Whitman; even though this is internal of the murderer, it's out of his control, hence can be considered as external, this isn't mentioned in the show).

Then, there are the potential internal forces: narcissism, psychopathy, etc. One might find it hard to imagine, but you're never in the head of a psychopath, the problem isn't that they think about doing evil things all the time, it's that evil deeds don't bother them because they're not emotionally affected by it. And one always seeks for outward traits of devil (as suggested by many authorities in the show), as if there's a stereotypical face caused by psychopathy. What are you looking for, a "666" tattoo? For instance, Chris Watts, who murdered his wife and daughters simply because he wanted to leave them behind and start a new life with another woman, he could also be thought as just a regular Joe. You would think the means are way too extreme for the ends, but that's not how they see it. One of my theories is that the murderer actually felt suffocated by the attention and affection that he's showered with, and could be feeling like everyone's baby, which he despised (the journalist - if she could be trusted - mentioned something along the lines that he felt that he could only be a real grown up without his family).

Lastly, there are the technical parts... first, why is it cut into 4 short episodes? Is it necessary? Or it makes the blatant repetitions of images and sentiments less egregious? Then the narrative, music... are all quite hackneyed. They aren't bad, just a little pedestrian for such a compelling story. The show seems like just a cool presentation of what people can already guess/know, they should ask more probing questions, shine light on more perspectives (with real studies to back it up). As it stands, it seems more like a he-said-she-said gossip story.