Released as a five-part mini-series on ESPN for their 30 to 30 series, Made in America also made a limited appearance on cinema screen, and received its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. Controversially, this qualified it as a feature and for the Best Documentary Academy Award (which it won), and watched as a whole the film runs at a whopping 7 hours plus. But anyone who states it was undeserved needs to watch the film again, as this is about as detailed, powerful and utterly gripping as documentary film-making gets. It seems to cover just about every angle, bringing in anybody who was anybody in the events leading up to the murder and the aftermath for revealing interviews, as well as boasting a stunning collection of archive footage. It's meticulously researched stuff, and even if you know the long-studied case back to front, you will still find something new.
Starting way back, we are taken through O.J.'s rise as a star college football player, leaping over or barging through anybody who stood in his way. He was worshipped almost like a God, and took this success to an unhappy period as a professional playing in Buffalo, where he was away from the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. We move through his tearful retirement to his move into acting, where he appeared in the likes of Capricorn One (1977) and The Naked Gun (1988), and his successful run as the face of Hertz. There's also his initially sweeping love affair with a beautiful young blonde named Nicole Brown, before the reports of domestic violence began. We witness a black man becoming a superstar in a white world that falsely preached equality, and he sat comfortably in that world while his fellow African-Americans were suffering terrible abuse at the hands of the law. Time and time again we witness a black man, woman or child murdered, beaten or treated like a dog by the police, only for them to be acquitted of the crime. Payback, it would seem, was on the cards, as the trial of O.J. Simpson began.
We are left in no question as to whether or not O.J. did it. He comes across as a master manipulator, ready to throw anybody under the bus - and have them be grateful at the same time - if it will give him a foot forward. A controlling, egotistical bully who would leave visible prints of his boot on Nicole's face, he is truly the worst kind of scumbag. The outcome of the trial certainly isn't excused (the prosecutor reminds the court late on that nobody seems to remember than Nicole and Ron were the actual victims), but it goes some way to explain it. You can feel the anger brewing as the film goes on, and through some truly disturbing footage of the Rodney King beating and the murder of Latasha Harlin, makes you angry with them. It portrays an entire country divided, with the trial playing out as an obvious metaphor for a nation in complete disarray, while the disgusting flaws in the American Justice System are exposed to a bleary-eyed prosecution. It's a work of true scholarship and unyielding ambition, and a frightening indictment of just how little has changed.
Directed by: Ezra Edelman
Starring: O.J. Simpson, Nicole Brown Simpson
Country: USA
Rating: *****
Tom Gillespie
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