Crimes and Penalties

A mafia documentary disguised as a sports documentary. Glorifies gang/crime culture a little too much for my taste.

A wild story of mobsters and hockey which was unexpected and kind of awesome. Though not as in depth 'emotionally' as the previous untolds, it was still a heck of a story with some interesting characters. Relevant people were interviewed and storyline flowed well.

I cannot remember the last time I laughed so much (in bewilderment) while watching a documentary. This is excellent source material for a Guy Ritchie / Shane Black film - there's this engrossing blend of dank humor and action which we seldom find in either filmmakers' works these days. It is a gangster-oriented filmmaker's wet dream, so to say. While the core plot and its proceedings are insanely entertaining, I also felt like the makers should have dumbed down on glorifying mob culture, rioting, and violence. Also, the score (something that's been problematic in the entire series to varying extents in each episode) is a tad too overpowering and even drowns out bits of dialogue at times.

That out of the way, the episode does a great job with its interviews. What I love about "Untold" as a whole is the style in which multiple interviews, regarding the same series of incidents, are stitched together - different people, different perspectives, different levels of swagger. The origin story of the Danbury Trashers is a mix of everything that can happen when there's too much money involved, with only a couple of crazy decision-makers in the mix. All the crimes (the violence, the cheating, the laundering, and what-not) - the stuff of total insanity - shouldn't have been celebrated to such an extent, with slow-motion montages of testosterone-driven men laughing manically and exhaling cigar smoke.

Anyone else feel that the accompanying music is extremely distracting and much louder than the dialogue? Kind of made it annoying for me. Otherwise it's a pretty cool story and worth a watch.

Interesting but if it taught me anything, it's that, you can be a criminal and get away with it and have a great life too.