Example Of Central Park Five By PBS: A Review Essay

Co-directed by David McMahon, Ken Burns and Sarah Burns, the movie “The Central Park Five” offers a substantive review on various issues clouding the provision of justice across various settings all over the world. In fact, the movie is based on a real life case; the renowned Central Park Jogger case of 1989 that culminated in the depraved convictions. Notably, the movie delves on issues aligned with racial profiling in our justice system whereby close to five Latino and black youngsters hailing from Harlem are erroneously convicted for purportedly raping a white woman at Central Park of New York City in the year 1989. Evidently, the lives of these youngsters were toppled by a mere miscarriage of integrity in our law courts. Conclusively, the film provides substantive reasons justifying the fact that New York’s prosecutorial system erred in giving a jurisdiction on the case brought forward against the youngsters involved.
More importantly, the suspects were subjected to Machiavellian interrogations, which provoked them to make wrong confessions with the hope that this would hand them a fair judgment. Moreover, the youngsters became addled by the questions they received from the police and this prompted them to offer positive confessions for involvement in rape. Overall, the aggressive interrogations carried out on the suspects coerced them to make statements that were marred by contradictory elements, which necessitated further investigations. However, further investigations yield no inherent evidence. On another note, the media played a very comprehensive role in wrongly labeling the youngsters, which influenced the eventual jurisdiction. In fact, the media coined various bad terms in reference to gangs of teems as purported to be the case in the current scenario. As a result, more investigations to offer substantive evidence became secondary, and conviction of the suspect teens became the only option.
On another note, the film takes a broader scope as it gives a broader picture of New York and the United states at large in the period preceding the incident. Notably, the cases take place after the financial recession period that had marred the United States and other parts of the globe. During this period, the legal and political climate was rife and quick to nail any culprits involved in malpractices that could hinder the nation’s progress to economic recovery. As such, the teenage suspects become victims of situations that did not work for their own interests. Nonetheless, the eventual arrest of the actual victim, a serial rapist duped Reyes Matias acted as a wakeup call for the United States Law enforcement system at large.
While it is true that the current film focuses on our judicial system, it is essential to note that it also gives a broader picture of the American Society as at the 1980’s. Precisely, this period was filled with a lot of biases that were aligned with racial concerns. This is evident by the fact that the testimonies by the five Latino and black teen’s lands them in jail instead of offering more information’s that could have been crucial in unraveling the rape and murder of the victim involved. Conclusively, the film depicts the evident discrepancies in the American society, whereby the middle class; who often comprise of black and Latinos experience a number of injustices that are closely aligned with their racial orientations. From the above analysis, the film utilizes a number of theatric techniques that give vivid and emotional descriptions of all the events culminating in its scenes. Additionally, the film utilizes original interviews, and video statements from the teen subjects; hence, substantiating the scope of the film.