Review | 'The Central Park Five' exposes a miscarriage of justice ...

?The Central Park Five? begins, like the crime at its heart, in pitch-black woods surrounded by a raging city.

This artful, understated documentary, directed by Sarah Burns, daughter of filmmaker Ken Burns, and her husband, David McMahon, recounts the awful true story of the five teenagers wrongfully convicted of raping and beating a 28-year-old woman who became known as the Central Park Jogger. (The film screens Friday and Sunday as part of the Kansas City FilmFest.)

These men explain (and display) the stark emotional scars of their experiences, but it takes help from sociologists, historians and politicians to remind us how different New York City was in 1989, and how the discovery of a near-dead white woman in the sacred ground of the park was the worst possible scenario for race relations at the time.

The men?s pained recollections, along with video stills from the police precinct that night, artfully convey the desperation inside the interrogation rooms, where detectives wrenched pathetic excuses for confessions from them. The authorities? contortions of logic to explain away the complete lack of DNA evidence ? in a case involving sexual assault and a savage, bloody beating ? remain confounding.

But despite the men?s eventual exoneration in 2002, ?The Central Park Five? becomes an exercise in despair, a function of the unacceptable excuse for closure these men got. The movie is obviously meant to help sway public opinion in that regard.

Everyone ? journalists, family members, even a juror ? admits to varying levels of culpability for the outrage, except for the willfully overzealous police, prosecutors and politicians most responsible. This is hardly a surprise, as three of the Central Park Five are still suing them, as well as the city, for damages, an effort entering its second decade.

?The Central Park Five? takes one of the most sensational crimes of the late 20th century and strips the circus that followed down to its roots. The horrific attack in the woods on that April night 24 years ago was just the beginning.

Showings: 6:15 p.m. Friday; 1:15 p.m. Sunday.

Also airing at 8 p.m. Tuesday on PBS.

Source: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/04/09/4171963/review-the-central-park-five-exposes.html

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