American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders

This is the kind of documentaries that stand out from the Netflix average trendy true crime docuseries and makes our subscription worthwhile. It's full of historical informations, not over dramatized and well narrated. This is a great tribute to Danny Caselaro's work. So to the main investigator of this doc Christian Hansen : Bravo ! It seems that this investigation took years of your life but it was worth it (+ you're still alive). Your doc helps clear some of the fog of history around the shitshow that was the 70's and 80's, it's so refreshing and entertaining !

Kudos to the Netflix producers that trusted you and financed this doc, we want more docs like this ! You tapped into a vein of gold right there, keep going !

Ignore the suspicously odd number of super low reviews. This documentary is flawed, but well worth a watch. Addressing the flaws first: it's a bit plodding at times and there are parts that could have been clearer. It also seems to throw the main information under the bus to some degree (perhaps pulling back to lessen the possiblity of blowback for making it). Is it biased? Probably (it's on Netflix, after all). Does it tell the whole story? Nope.

It is, however, very much still worth a watch. It offers some fresh examples of how the world actually works: evidence that's buried by the police, murderous criminals who do little/no time (because they also work for powerful people), intelligence operatives posing as humanitarians, "whistleblowers" who dole out disinformation and try to determine what you actually know, intersection of intelligence organizations and organized crime, etc.

If you aren't already somewhat familiar with the world of covert operations like the CIA's role in the crack cocaine epidemic you might assume all of what's in the documentary is made up, but the world is a strange place.

This doc series had a great start, delving into the suspicious death of an investigative journalist who was knee deep in government conspiracies. Unfortunately, it never goes any deeper. Documenters force you to watch countless minutes of news flashbacks pertaining to a myriad of different scandals but never draw conclusions or make new discoveries. The two 'journalists' simply come to the same conclusions that their predecessor did but have just as little proof. There are far too many people involved and far too many events dragged in for a person to come out on the other end of this doc remembering even one shred of it all.

American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders: Documentary series which explores the death of journalist Danny Casolaro and the conspiracies he was investigating at the time of his death. It very much looks as if he was murdered and the the death scene staged to look like suicide, But was he killed by state agents or killers acting on behalf of organised crime? The documentary uncovers credible evidence that officials in the Justice Department acted to steal software from it's legitimate owners and hand ir over to those who had political connections, Other murders are involved not to mention some of those who crop up in the investigation having links to the Iran-Contra affair. Some former state assets may have been set up and/oe killed because of loose lips. We are dealing with the intersection of the Intelligence Community with Organised Crime. A good documentary but it tries to cover too many issues and becomes convoluted and confusing at times. Directed by Zachary Treitz. Four episodes on Netflix. 7/10.

The documentary series is watchable and interesting on multiple levels. On the surface, the mystery behind the death of Casolaro, an investigative journalist who dies while in pursuit of his journalistic White Whale. Did he take his own life? Or was he murdered?

The second layer, not obvious at first, is the perilous prospect of diving head first into a rabbit hole, and the affect on a person's sanity and grip on reality, when one rabbit hole inevitably leads to more.

The third tragic layer is the damage you can feel from all the peripheral players. Family and friends of Casolaro's as well as the investigators involved (including the documentarians) are haunted by his death, and the labyrinthian tentacles of a corrupt network too big to solve.

The unreliable narratives, shady interviewees and second hand (sometimes third or fourth) information spin wheels that often go nowhere. We even get a bizarre claim about the veracity of the Zapruder film that will cause thousands of internet searches.

What can't be argued are the disturbing patterns of convenient missing data, witnesses and disinterested authorities. In the last episode, the file on Casolaro's death is opened, revealing a key piece of information that was hidden/ignored/forgotten that would have changed the entire course of his murder investigation.

The internecine threads of government corruption, illegal and immoral surveillance are, by turns, shocking but unsurprising.

Ultimately, as a documentary there are quality issues that can't be ignored, and more than a few confusing photo montages that don't shed any light...on anything.

But, in the end, tantalized by another random phone call, our investigator, who has seemed to break away from the demented allure of mass conspiracy, allows himself to be drawn in once again.

A cautionary tale to be sure.