Les génies du mal

I've been struggling to get into shows of late, so was happy to find myself hooked on this documentary series, watching it all in just over a day.

Its just mind-blowing. Each episode has its own strong stories that would work well as a stand-alone event, except that they are all related in complex ways and tell this insane over-arching plot. The mystery that unfolds from the bizarre SAW-like first episode is so unpredictable and twisty, right up to the very last moments.

Its fascinating watching interviews, hearing bits of pieces of information, and finding your mind folding in on itself as you try to suss people out, think about motives, all the 'what ifs' etc. There is something always eerie and atmospheric about seeing evidence, street footage of locations, news footage, tying it all together like you're a voyeuristic detective.

I thought it was brilliantly researched and edited, and never a dull moment. I'd have loved for a body language expert like Paul Ekman (or someone like his fictional protege Cal Lightman from Lie to Me) to analyse the interviews for 'tells' as they were plentiful.

With incredible true-stories like this, brilliantly told, I struggle to justify why I'd want to watch a made-up story with self-conscious actors and gimmicky direction. There's so much more to learn, and substantial food for thought from real life.

This is one of the craziest stories I've ever heard of! So many twists and turns, and just when you think you have your head wrapped around it...you find out you don't! Hard to believe this really happened.

It's no secret that I admire the quality Netflix has been bringing out concerning docu-series. In fact this is were my love started for this whole new reinvented genre. The biggest gems in my opinion are: "Making a Murderder", "Wild Wild Country", "The Keepers", "Flint Town",... I do believe this one had the potential to make it right in that row. But just failed in doing all things perfect. Nevertheless this is a good documentary, you do need to watch, if you are in love with this genre.

The beginning is quite spot on, and really powerful. Especially the scene where you witness the bombing of the hostage. It was raw, and portrayed in that way that immediately made you feel sick to your stomach. From that point on the story starts. Episode one is quality wise the best episode. You feel that the director is building up to some things. But the following episodes he fails on delivering, in my opinion. It has all to do with the pacing, which is so important in this genre. It's actually the building up that is not always right. It is as if the director knows what he wants to tell you, but got lost in all the details, and doesn't really know which parts of the story deliver suspense, and which just slow down the story in general. Generally this make the plots not as powerful and as surprising as they could have been made.

The second thing where it fails on delivering is really getting an understanding of the persons involved in this. The two lead criminals in this story are obviously Diehl-Armstrong and Rothstein. Every episode consists of a lot of footage of Diehl-Armstrong, who is obviously a wounded narcissist woman, talking gibberish. What's the value of this footage? It's quite clear this is a very sick woman. But it doesn't provide any added value, unless it could show another side of this person. The same goes to Rothstein. I do feel the personal relationship with Diehl-Armstrong and the director got in the way. As he believed she was the key to the truth in this story. Because of his time investment in this relationship, a big part of the story is only told by her. Without adding any more value to the story that must be told.

Because of this the plot, and the building up to the end - which should have been a real climax - goes way to fast. And all te discoveries the director make, don't feel as important as they should have felt. Nevertheless, this is a great documentary with a story full of plots that may really surprise you. And I'm happy this story got told.

There are a lot of good intentioned police officers and a lot of smart ones too, and theres a lot of average intelligence. But there are a lot of officers who are incredibly dumb. I get that this bomb was a situation they didnt know how to handle. The thing that is so interesting, is how basic many peoples interpretation of emotion is. I have seen many people (not officers - anyone) comment on videos of criminal interviews for example. They often think that if the person isnt responding in the most basic way that they are lying.

These officers were explaining how this man wasnt panicking as a sign that he was lying about the bomb strapped to him. It doesnt even cross their mind that people respond unusually in unusual situations. Police are so utterly untrained in psychology, yet that is the main aspect of their job. 99.9% of the time theyre not having a wild west show down, they are talking to people. They could not tell that this man was so scared that he couldnt even panick? They cannot even imagine being so terrified you feel like stone that you could hardly move properly let alone communicate normally? Literally the directions he was under was all about not panicking as well. So he is obviously trying to follow their instructions.

This reminds me of an interview I saw of a murder suspect. She did yoga when the police officers stepped out of the room. So after being questioned for hours in a single room, and youre trying not to lose your mind, yoga seems like a strange choice? Thats literally what yoga is for. People including officers are incredibly dim to not be able to imagine that people have different ways of reacting and different situations create different reactions.

Then this continues showing the police officers having caused a traffic jam. Of course they have motorcycles, but for the bomb officer to get on a motorcycle and speed towards the scene, that is too hard to figure out? I mean this is beyond stupid.

How is it anyone claims that people are the smartest animal? I mean... they assume that the reason the man is not running around freaking out is NOT because he literally has a bomb strapped to him, NOT that hes trying to hold onto his sanity in order to guide these incredibly dim officers into actually being of service, NOT because he is in total shock from fear... no they assume its because the bomb isnt real and he is just lying -- with no game plan- he is just lying while sitting in handcuffs. And this is after they see its a real bomb.

And they have him in handcuffs with guns pointed at him and no one helping whatsoever. They werent even like, "hey most of the officers here arent doing anything, we dont need 10 guns aimed at this guy, how about five of you guys try to follow the directions and get the keys? Just in case it is a real bomb and we really can get keys to get him out of it."

Obviously the hostage could see that his words were not reaching any human of normal intelligence. He was crying for help to animals who did not comprehend language. Of course he lost the spirit in his voice. He is about to die and these cops are just staring back at him blankly, blinking and pointing a gun. They are literally staring at him and ignoring him completely 100%. What do you do if you are being ignored? You completely lose all hope. He could see that these officers were completely missing intellect. He was talking to a blank wall. A blank wall that was aiming multiple guns at him.

Its really hard to keep hope for humanity when we have a system that sends these very very stupid creatures running around pointing guns at people. They are so incredibly stupid its terrifying. We would be safer if we gave a bunch of monkeys guns. The monkeys would be able to sense peoples emotions they would not just aim at someone in such severe distress that they were freezing up from the completely demoralizing situation they were in.

We need officers who for one have at least average intelligence. They have emotional IQs high enough to tell when a person is in distress, not just blindly read the stereotypical signs like "is screaming and crying". That is something that a lot of people who are autistic are not capable of. They cannot read emotions. Some have to be taught if someone is yelling they are angry, if someone is crying they are sad. Its a mental handicap. Most people can realize human emotions beyond the level of severe autism.

We also need officers who are trained in psychology. They also need to have some training for all situations like bombs.

We also need people to divert from their standard system when necessary. To problem solve. To say hey maybe we should use multiple strategies at the same time here, some officers monitor, some follow the directions. Not go interview the pizza shop manager?????????????

There are not enough words to describe the stupidity of a lot of people. Sadly those officers and others who are incredibly stupid are not kept out of officer positions. Read up on how they are selected to be kind of dumb. They also have to work under sociopath corrupt leaders. We need a revamp of humanity.

A perfect storm of doc-making. You have a researcher who's spent 15 years of his life getting close to every character, you have a compelling edit that never drags and creates more twists and suspense then 99.8% documentaries, and last of all you have one of the weirdest and most dumbfounding crimes ever undertaken. Blown away by this series and a huge congrats to everyone who worked on it.