The Interrogation of Michael Crowe

The main child actor is astonishingly good; a really heart-rending performance. A couple of the cops are good too. Great to see Ally Sheedy again. Unfortunately, the script is too on-the-nose and the lawyer is a really bad actress, so it brings it all down to a 3-star (out of 5) film. Overall, it's sort of entertaining in a "disease-of-the-week" TV movie kind of way, but there are many better films you could be watching...

This movie was absolutely stunning. I was shocked at how well it was done. Although Michael Riley's performance as Stephen Crow was a little dull, the rest of it was fabulous. Mark Rendall, who played Michael Crow, was unbelievable. He left me in tears. His performance was superb. And Ally Sheedy, who played Cheryl Crow, was excellant, as usual. The real murder took place VERY close to my home, and the accuracy was unbelievable. This was the one of the most accurate murder cases I've ever seen. Overall, I give this movie 9/10.

This film recently aired on Court TV and it's a grim true story of how California police used intimidation to attain a false confession from an innocent 14-year-old whose sister was killed. This family, the Crowes, was victimized twice, once by the killer, and then by the police who destroyed their lives. This film shows the interrogation filmed in very stark lighting where you can't even see the actors eyes. Ally Sheedy portrays the mother. A warning: this is a VERY depressing film, as the police brand Michael guilty based on the evidence that he likes to play Dungeons and Dragons with his friends. For anyone who's ever been falsely accused this is a must see. And it's interestingly relevant as the Central Park jogger case just released 5 innocent kids after 10 years in jail. How many innocent people sit in prison now falsely convicted? We'll never know the true statistics of our injustice system.

This is an outstanding performance with a full range of emotion and portrayal of a teen boy, from slightly surly to loving, from confusion through desperation, to damaged, toward recovery. It's all there from the opening scene through to almost the end. The scenes of the interrogation itself are among the most harrowing, and Mark is excellent. Make-up did good work here to show the physical toll, on his face. His body language was very good in these scenes. Later, the anguish of his experience is captured perfectly in the scene with his mother when she wants him to go to the video store with her.

This is a good little movie (congratulations Court TV) with strong performances by all of the cast, including the rather creepy portrayal of the detectives getting their way in the interviews.

But for me, Mark's work was splendid.

I just watched this and found it a very well made documentary drama ... There were Excellent performances by all characters in the movie .

I had never heard of this true story before but it is very intriguing portrayal of the heart wrenching tragedy that the California Crowe family endured back in the 1990,s... It displays the abusive investigative methods and powers of a shoddy police investigation that had no compassion or support for the victim and family ...

I didn't really see that it was shot in Ontario Canada until looking it up here ... Now I,LL have to see if it's coming on again to see if I recognize any landmarks ! I noticed as well that there was a more recent updated incident in the case around 2012 or 2013 ..? Going to go research that now too ... Basically I am here to say if you haven't seen this movie ..... Do it