User reviews

So I am not American, didn't know who Aaron Hernandez was before watching this and needless to say don't watch American football. Nevertheless I really found this to be very interesting and very well presented by the makers of this documentary mostly due to the legal aspects of the story. Like with many other murderers and especially with serial ones, it almost always takes the perfect storm to create one. Because of that I appreciate when portrayals of murderers are nuanced like this one. Understanding why people commit the crimes they do is important for a society in my opinion and I believe this documentary did a good job at presenting facts as well as personal stories about him without taking a stance on the matters. The stories told by his friends and acquaintances should of course be taken with a grain of salt, especially the ones told by his former "best friend" since nothing was presented from Hernandez' side to corroborate those anecdotes. But I liked how they very vividly painted the picture of his whole childhood and the aspects of what it means to be a professional football player.

The missing part for me, or what could have made this more interesting, is if his fiancé would have participated in this and told her side of the story. That way this could have been more balanced. But I can understand why she would decline to do so.

I give this an 8/10 for execution and would recommend it to anyone regardless of one's interest in Hernandez or American football. It is an interesting case on it's own.

The story of Aaron Hernandez is quite captivating, a star football player with seemingly everything ahead of him, murders someone and ruins his whole life. Why? Unfortunately the series relies too much on people expressing their opinions and not on actual facts. The focus is on the wrong places and seems to cheapen the main purpose. It makes it more he said she said than a documentary.

An interesting approach to a murderer who is a complete boggle-- if ever there was a person who simply did not need to do what he did, it is Hernandez. The lack of direct input from everyone most directly involved leads to a mosaic approach to the narrative, much of it carried by inference or the build-up of circumstantial opinions.

There are no answers, and none are given, but the parade of people trying to protect themselves from proof of knowledge or shared culpability becomes a source of fascination in its own right.

Like everyone else I knew the headlines, but getting a detailed view of the whole case was interesting. There's no way to know if Hernandez made his decisions because of abuse, desperation to keep his sex life secret, CTE or was he simply a sociopath? Maybe all of the above. Unlike most documentaries this didn't seem to be driving an agenda, just presenting the facts. They didn't lock in on one reason it could have happened, they detailed many possibilities through their research, Hernandez's jail conversations and interviews with people that knew him. I highly recommend this documentary.

Wow. Watched this documentary gripped and dumbfounded as it all unfolded. Ended up constantly pausing to discuss and debate all the different aspects and conclusions. Just an extremely sad, interesting and bizarre case, one that leaves you unable to put it out of your mind for a long time. I found the documentary on a level to Making a Murderer and The Ted Bundy Tapes, Netflix knows how to get you hooked.

Being from Europe and not interested in American Football, I never heard anything about Hernandez. So I somehow stumbled over this Mini- Series on Netflix without reading or knowing anything about it.

This documentary is heart wrenching and once again shows pretty good the complex process of one ( above average gifted young) man's life gone totally wrong.

We learn, it may be the sum of many different events and experiences that can lead to devastating, bad decision making, and how important it is to have a safe social environment with truly caring and open minded people.

I enjoyed it. I almost skipped over it as I generally don't watch things like this. But I like football, I lived in Bristol while Aaron played football at Bristol Central, and I like the Patriots. It showed him growing up, his family strife, then college and getting drafted with the Pats.....and the 3 murders (almost 4) he was involved with. Three one hour episodes that I watched in the same evening. It pulled me in. I recomend this documentary.

I appreciate IMDB and have utilized its app to replace the volumes of movie encyclopedias that were a primary resource until, at least, the 90's. Not knowing anything about this case I wanted to watch it cold . I took a quick look at the reviews ( you know to see if it's mid rated consistent 6's verses 10's and 2'a and the headers are filled with spoilers. If your reading this your probably not an offender and if you are please understand that no spoilers means not giving away information that is isn't stated in the first 3 minutes is the film or show.

They gave us wayyy too much information trying to fill up three 1 hour long episodes. Director needs to learn how to EDIT because this could have been about 90 minutes. Really felt like I was watching a doc about football at times instead of a murder. Can't count how many times they went off topic and I was thinking "Okay but....do we really need to know about this? Get to the point." Really frustrating. There is such a thing as too much backstory!!!! They interviewed people they didn't need to interview talking about things that absolutely did not matter at all.

This doco series is a stand out. Brilliantly delivered and produced. It hit a nerve with me however, and I can't help but feel deeply emotional and upset. Same way I felt after watching the Paradise Lost trilogy.......the US judicial system is defective and sometimes, downright idiotic. This poor kid took the wrong turn in life but I can't help but feel empathetic towards him. A tragic story but an excellent documentary.

As a psychologist myself, I feel I need to question the angle this documentary takes. It tells of an NFL player who commits a murder and the director attempts to find some explanations for his actions. There were also questions about his sexuality and it was spoken of a few times, but this still doesn't lead to an explanation for his motives. Then they talk about his sporting head injuries and propose this as an explanation. The documentary is a bit scattered and sometimes deviates from the central mystery of motive. But never the less, it's a compelling Netflix documentary and a lesson that we shouldn't assume that our sporting icons can't have a dark side.

Whenever someone tells you "money buy happiness", show him this documentary.

Nothing new here. Just telling the facts.

I do think that 3, 1 hr episodes is too much. The story was dragged on a little too long.

If you don't have anything else to watch...binge this on a Saturday afternoon.

I was a huge fan of Hernandez, and one of many jersey owners. There are so many details about this case that I didn't know. More importantly there were so many details about Aaron that I didn't know either. Very well done documentary. Very sad all around for all the families involved including Aaron. The way everything was laid out in this film couldn't have been better. One of the most alarming things about the documentary is that in his college highlights: Tim Tebow.....It appears Tim Tebow can actually throw in those highlights!!

Football star Aaron Hernandez (1989-2017) was convicted for killing a buddy, Odin Lloyd. This documentary shows the web of possible elements that contributed to making Hernandez complicit in crimes and murder: Suffering from brain damage from his athletic career. Being an intelligent, troubled, sensitive boy in a disrupted family. Unable to cope with closeted homosexuality in a homophobic sports world and his own heteronormative community. Too much marijuana. Living a life with success, fame and discipline - and anger, guns, violence, and questionable people. Unable to develop a functioning personality. A compellingly put together puzzle of reasons and facts

An interesting and well made documentary. Death of father, being gay or having brain injury from playing football is not an excuse for killing four people just for the hell of it, but then he played for the NFL, not an uncommon behavior .

As a football lover and a pats fan, i had to watch it. I still dream of what could have been in New England with Gronk and Hernandez. His story is sadly amazing, netflix did a pretty good job. the only thing i would disagree one was the way how they potrayed his not prooven homosexuality. They clearly needed another reason to show why he was so.

This series was well done. It's so unfortunately that he chose to live his life the way he did.

People are complex beings. Rare is the case where someone, or the situation they may find themselves to be in, cut and dry. In the case of the star player for the New England Patriots, Aaron Hernandez, I think that's particularly true. Had the director and producers of this kept it there however, I would have given this a higher rating.

Where this loses me though is in how the producers and director seem to want to pin his behavior on the loss of his dad, or his sexuality in a very macho sport, or the CTE found on his brain. I'm not going to say that any one, or perhaps some combination of all those things, contributed to Aaron's behavior and his spiral into violence, but that to me seems to be a cop-out. I think it should be pointed out more explicitly in the documentary that people deal with the loss of parents on a daily basis, it doesn't turn every one of them violent. People deal with the complexity of sexuality every day, doesn't mean they'll all become killers. People, athletes in particular, deal with all manner of trauma, it doesn't mean the majority of them end up in jail.

The producers and director gave several minutes worth of these being contributing factors to what Aaron Hernandez did, despite questions over his character existing at the tail end of high school and into college. And it may be true to an extent that those things did. Yet, only a couple of minutes toward the end were dedicated to people saying that, ultimately, Aaron Hernandez was responsible for the choices he made. Maybe those who were involved in the making of this documentary threw that in to provide something resembling balance, but it certainly didn't seem like they were saying he was ultimately responsible for the choices he made.