Adam Kamien and Luke Rynderman take a lot of risks with "The Speedway Murders", a true crime doc that posits five diverse theories on a cold case that's baffled authorities for over 45 years.
On an evening in November 1978, four Indiana teenagers were abducted at gunpoint from closing a robbed Burger Chef only to be found in a nearby county, days later, apparently shot and stabbed in an almost execution-style manner.
Nothing about this case is clear cut. The motives are murky, the suspects are myriad, theories extending into drugs and massive debts are tossed out and debated hotly by cops, ex-cons, and family and friends of the victims. It's a lot to digest, but fortunately Kamien and Rynderman manage to laser in and lay bare the emotionalism and attendant PTSD of the tragedy without inordinate exploitation.
This is a documentary that makes no bones that its focus is on the four young employees of the restaurant rather than on the possible suspects, living or dead, maybe even more than the actual crime itself --- an approach likely to annoy many hard true crime addicts. It's a wise choice, though, because without that accent on humanism the film would never keep one's attention due to its many contradictory theories and suppositions. It's a unique, gripping experience because unlike a lot of crime docs, you're almost thrust into the position of actively solving the case as you watch the film. It's not a reductive set of flashbacks.
The structure is unique yet somewhat repetitive, but I actually found that to be more stabilizing than distracting. You really get a feel for the "Burger Chef Four's" individual personalities and their connections with each other, even though much of their interrelations are speculative. In perhaps the most unique facet of the film, instead of relying on strict, vague reenactments, the kids often recount the events of the night, debate the clues, examine the suspects in longer-than average takes, almost but never completely breaking the fourth wall (which might have been more interesting, actually).
The actors who play the teens aren't striving for drama as much as authenticity, and if there's any shortcomings to this approach it's more in the clinical nature of their lines than in the line-readings themselves. This borderline Verite approach is not going to fly with many conventional doc audiences, I don't think, but if you're in the mood for something a little more unconventional, I think you'll enjoy it.
This isn't a case with a scope or sensationalism on par with the Manson murders or the Zodiac, but in its own way it's as immediate and disturbing, if only for the length of time it has taken for it to come to a plausible resolution and how many lives it touched and fractured in the process.
