A very good movie

This movie did sound intriguing and, since it had been very well received and since it was available on HBO Max, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, even though it was to be expected, it turned out to be some really dark stuff. I have already seen the heralded ‘13th’ directed by Ava DuVernay but, compared to this movie, it was almost an innocent Disney family feature. I mean, I knew the prison system was pretty bad in the US but what they displayed was just really shocking. Basically, the prisons in Alabama are some horrible dehumanizing death/slave camps which is something coming back all the way to the Civil War (a topic actually not discussed in this movie but in ‘13th’). It’s also interesting because in the Netherlands where I live, many people complain on a regular basis that the prisons in this country are actually too ‘nice’ but I’m glad that inmates are actually treated decently in my country. Indeed, as pointed out by a mother showing the ghastly picture of her son literally beaten up to death, ‘you wouldn’t treat a dog like this’. Eventually, no matter what crimes these men did commit, they should never been treated like animals as it was displayed in this movie. In fact, I always had some mixed feelings about the concept of imprisonment. Indeed, we (in the US but also in the rest of the world) do focus way too much on punishing the perpetrators. Basically, you have done something wrong so you have to pay for it, you have to be punished for it but, in my opinion, it’s actually not the right approach. Indeed, it’s in fact rather childish and, above all, an unproductive way to handle criminals. I’m really convinced that most of them chose this line of work not by choice but through circumstances and, if we would spend more time in see why they ended up here and how we could make sure they become productive human beings, I think we would all benefit from it. Anyway, this movie displayed the complete opposite, some horrible places closer to some Nazi concentration camp showing how seriously rotten this system has become. To conclude, even though it was so sad and depressing to behold, it is actually an important movie and you should check it out.