Valentine Road

On February 12, 2008, in Oxnard, California, grade 8 student bully Brandon McInerney shots his effeminate classmate Larry King twice in the back of the head in class and then just walks away. Brandon is caught a couple of blocks away. He is supposedly the good one according to his family and friends. Larry King is overtly flamboyantly gay and even declares publicly that Brandon is his Valentine. This documentary examines the troubled abused lives of both boys.

This is a more in-depth examination of a passing story in the headlines. It shows that the story behind the story. The documentary seems to be trying to rehabilitate Brandon and then the prosecutor shows his fights in detention. The movie takes a turn into white supremacist area and the tension ends for me. It's kind of a drop-the-mike moment. At that point, there is really nothing to learn from Brandon. I would have argued for Brandon to be interviewed for the documentary but quite frankly, I don't see the point after the neo-nazi stuff. Maybe he'll reform in prison but it's hard to see that happening.

Reviewing a documentary like this one becomes as much a review of the actual event as a commentary on the cinematic production. And since thoughts about this actual event are fraught with emotions on either side, or on many sides, the reviews I skimmed through seemed inclined to see this presentation of the events as being biased against whoever the reviewer felt was the "real" victim.

I'm gay and personally experienced the bullying & name calling from classmates (and lack of support from any adults who might be expected to provide guidance to young people) while I was in school in suburban Chicago many, many years ago. I would, therefore, be inclined to see Larry as the victim and Brandon as the bad guy, at least before getting into the facts of the case.

I think the documentary has done a laudable job showing that both children … and they were 14 and 15 year old children at the time … were victims of both parental & societal neglect, abandonment, abuse and mind boggling stupidity. Both lost their lives from preventable and curable problems. Larry quite literally was denied the opportunity to ever find out if "It Gets Better" and Brandon doesn't fare a whole lot better although he continues to live.

I applaud the emphasis that the documentary puts on the adults involved. It may take a village to raise a child, but the cabal of idiots involved in this case demonstrates the damage a "village" of adults can cause in the pathetic attempt to raise its children. The homophobic, bitter 7th grade teacher is as bad as the foolish 8th grade teacher who gave Larry a second–hand dress and treated him like a Barbie doll. Equally to blame were the school officials who were more interested in toeing the legal line than serving the interest of their students … including Larry and Brandon before the crisis and all the other children following the event.

The parents of the two boys and others who were meant to care for them were, for the most part, sadly inadequate. Apparently the care facility in which Larry ended up was a good place, but otherwise these two kids were left to deal with their own circumstances as well as with the drug addled failings of the adults in their lives, with no help. The prosecuting attorney seemed fairly level headed, although I don't really understand why Brandon was not allowed to be tried as a child. Possibly his outward appearance seemed more adult than his fragile personality would suggest. The defense attorneys seemed reasonable in their desire to have Brandon not tried as an adult, but the woman attorney who, at the end, kept announcing she loved Brandon and started crying, was acting in an irrational, far too emotional manner. Her interest in Brandon seemed anything but professional.

Certainly some of the jurors were totally incapable of making a valid judgment. Since there was no question about what Brandon had done, the only decision that needed to be made was what to do with him following the murder. Society had failed to protect him (or Larry) and now some inadequate representatives of that failed society were expected to decide what should happen next. If it weren't so sad, it would be funny. Had Brandon been raised in a reasonably normal family situation and developed into a self-assured, confident, loved young man, when Larry approached him while he was playing basketball with friends, Brandon could easily have laughed it off or even hugged Larry and turned it into a joke. But he saw it as one more attack on his personal dignity and from someone far less intimidating than his father.

Neither of these two children should have been made to feel so hated, to have developed such self-loathing and to have been abandoned to deal with life on their own.

Based on the letter that Brandon sent to the one teacher, maybe incarceration provided some protection for him and allowed him to develop into a more self-assured, sensible individual. It would be easy to argue that incarceration for 21 years was too little or too much. Was it meant to be punishment or as an attempt to provide a remedial environment?

It did save him from further abuse from his father (who died soon after the incident anyway) and the self-absorbed drug addicted mother, but that should have happened before he murdered Larry.

I think the documentary was quite well done. I know some people with limited attention spans may have found it slow moving at times, but that may have been appropriate since neither of these marginal children ever generated much in the way of speedy action from the local community and that lethargy & indifference extended even to the collateral damage inflicted on the other children in this story.

On February 12th 2008, in Oxnard California, a 14 year-old student Brandon brought a school to gun and shot his classmate Larry from point blank range in the back of his head while we was working on a computer in class. The day before Larry, who had a crush on Brandon, had asked him to be his Valentine in front of his friends embarrassing him. In the weeks leading up to the incident, Larry had begun to wearing makeup and accessorising, and had come out to friends.

The documentary, Valentine Road, slowly unpacks the incident through interviews with the community. There are endless perspectives here, from Larry's friends at school - including Marina, a classmate who came out to her Mum when she was picked up after the shooting; the defense lawyers, who were so moved by the case that they decided to represent Brandon pro bono; the foster parents who used to look after Larry; the Jurors who joined the 'Save Brandon' cause after the trial was declared a mistrial. The only voice that was really missing from the film was Larry's.

The remarkable journey that this film took was an emotional roller coaster. The film fluctuated between taking the audience to incredibly sad places, emphasising the life that was lost. But the real sadness is the embedded homophobia that still exists in the community. Some of the perspectives are hard to listen to. There were times that I felt so much anger towards the people that were expressing their intolerance and this failure to understand that people are different which only breeds Brandon's who believe they have no choice but to use violence. There's also the incredible joy of seeing hope through the people that had learned from this incident and learned to stand up for what is right.

Not blaming Brandon was one of the incredible feats of the film. Instead the film kept at a distance, remaining objective. It was clear at times where the film was leveling its critique: the scene in which a bunch of jurors hang out discussing the case is long, as the statements they make about the case becoming increasingly stupid, naive and upsetting. This is so topical and so relevant. It must be seen and people must talk about this. For me, the most striking thing was the dominance of the intolerance. When intolerance makes up the hegemonic viewpoint bad things happen. I hope that Oxnard can, at some point, learn from this.

And pretty hard to evaluate the objectivity of the producers and director. i must really say that how this film developed from a pure assassination scheme on a case of hatecrime , genderification and racehate, and ended up in the complete opposite direction where white supremacy is a major issue in ventura county, as these voices thinks that whites are becoming outnumbered by other races and colours of skin, and where the hodloom that shot the gun should be freed cause of his young age and that he was provoked by the victims transgender behaviour. so was this a white supremacists documentary, whos the culprit in this case? i think its easy to tell that a killing has happened, and the my simple mind says that he should also be convicted some way or another? another open question shouldve been the mental statuses by both the victim and the shooter. and its also a question of how the justice system is made, shouldnt there be a rule especially when the jurys are hung in their opinions that the judge could make the final ruling when the status quo is so off the record unbelievable as in this case.?

well im threading the deep waters of american intolerance by saying these uttering, but i know how to swim, but good advertising for oxnard california it aint. as a film product it does engage the viewer, its an emotional roller coaster for all its worth, and should be held as an example how inconsequent a nation may be, and how dangerously divided on everything they seems to be.

the grumpy old man knows documentaries are made to teach and to provoke, they really provoked me, so a 7 with a recommend

It takes a village to murder a child. Meet the adults lacking in morality who warped one of their own children to murder another child they didn't like. They've never been so proud.