They Called Him Mostly Harmless

The internet sleuthing dimension got in the way of a really compelling story imo. I don't mind that they talked about the search and the communities cultivated online (emphasis on "cult"). But I wish the producers didn't focus so much on those elements. A nice tight one-hour doc about a man whose isolation led him permanently into the wilderness- and whose identity was only discovered through new technology, crowdfunding and the will of strangers- would have been solid. Instead, too much time was spent on the strangers. The more "serious" it got the more I laughed, and the film lost its punch in the process.

I still think it's worth watching, tho. I won't jump on the hate bandwagon lol. For one, I had never heard anything about his story before and it left me with plenty of food for thought. While this man did something very few (if any) of us would ever do, his life was still surprisingly relatable. How much of that has to do with what you know about him, and how much of it has to do with what you don't?

I thought the quote the producers found from Adams' book was a gem, and really captured the central theme of the project: "Let the past hold on to itself and let the present move forward into the future." Such a pointed reminder for everyone involved: be it those of us watching at home; characters who participated *from home; and maybe most notably "Mr. Harmless" himself, who could never find his way home at all.

The only thing that I'm really taking away from this documentary is what a loathsome narcissistic P. O. S. Christie is. She doesn't really seem to care at all about the case, she just wants to be the one to solve it. I know exactly what kind of person she is; she gets off on power, on being in charge. Basically, an entitled Karen. The one comment that defined her, made after she shot her mouth off about 'cracking the case', wasn't anything to do with any kind of regret about making a mistake in identifying the hiker, it was about how the mistake would make her look. What an awful human being. Christie, I hope you're reading this. Do better. Be better.

I was living in Naples, Florida when the news was first reported that a man had been found deceased inside a tent in the woods of the nearby Big Cypress reserve area. And I remember that the angle of the story was one of mystery as to just how the man had died and that his identity remained undetermined. The case was in the news for a few days, then it essentially vanished and we, the public, moved onto other things.

So I was genuinely a bit surprised to learn that the search to find out just who the person was and how he died had become such a massive undertaking by those people on the Internet who style themselves as amateur sleuths.

This documentary is an interesting look at how those Internet communities, along with law enforcement and the assistance of a sophisticated DNA lab, were finally able to determine who the deceased man, known by his trail hiking name as "Mostly Harmless," actually was, and just what his backstory consisted of.

And the final reveal definitely included some real surprises, once the actual truth is discovered.

Like all of these kind of modern documentaries that look at the world of amateur sleuths who immerse themselves in true crime and other similar unsolved mysteries, there is good and bad and even some extremely ugly aspects to what people will allow themselves to devolve into so far as their emotional investment in a case is concerned.

Worth a watch if you enjoy this particular genre.

As a fan of various YouTube mystery and crime channels, I recall the tale of Mostly Harmless popping up from time to time. Eventually it was "solved" but the strange, sad and lonely tale retained its interest. If you'd like to hear more about that, I recommend checking out channels on YouTube like Scary Mysteries or Barely Sociable.

What THIS particular documentary represents is the story around the mystery. It's about the toxic and fannish world of True Crime aficionados, the infighting, the clashes, the betrayals and the often sad lives of the people behind the reddit accounts. Yes, the story of Mostly. Harmless is explored, but it's on the periphery.

If you go in knowing what you're getting, that this is as much or more about the amateur forum posters attempting to solve the mystery and give a name to the enigmatic hiker, then you're in for a very fascinating documentary.

But if you're already familiar with the case and looking for a break down or, worse, just looking for a proper investigative mystery, then you will probably come away disappointed and feeling a bit cheated.

This is what happens when a story can be told in one hour, yet the filmmakers need to fill 90 minutes. The whole background of the Facebook group members and their drama was such obvious filler that it ended up taking away from the finished product. The officer originally investigating the case had it right when he said that he skips the drama part when reading the Facebook tips that were coming in. If only we were so lucky.

Apparently reviews have to be stupidly long now so, much like the documentary, it's necessary for me to add a lot of filler in here in order to make the required length. See how annoying it is?