The Central Park Five (2012) User Reviews

Never be afraid to lawyer up.

[nesfilmreviews · 8/10 · 3 October 2013]

"Central Park Five" serves as a warning about legal incompetence, innocent lives destroyed, and a judicial system vulnerable to manipulation. The documentary details a nightmare scenario for five Harlem teenagers facing hard time, and the condemnation of America for a crime they didn't commit. The production sets the situation immediately, introducing the viewer to NYC in the 1980s, where Wall Street is in the process of rebuilding its reputation, while crack ravages the inner city, creating an explosive racial divide.

The film examines the infamous 1989 Central Park Jogger case, where a young white woman is brutally beaten and raped in New York's Central Park. At the same time, a group of five young black and Latino teenagers were quickly arrested for the crime and imprisoned. Following swift arrests by law enforcement officials, the prosecutors proudly declared the conviction as a step forward in the reclamation of a the city. Despite the lack of concrete evidence, all five are found guilty on multiple charges. Raymond Santana, Yusef Salaam, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, and Kharey Wise each spent between six to 13 years in prison, professing their innocence, while maintaining that it was a coerced confession to the crime. However, a chance encounter between the oldest of them and convicted serial rapist Matias Reyes, who years later yields his free admission of sole responsibility for the crime, and the claim is further substantiated with DNA evidence.

The documentary's approach seamlessly blends past and present, re-examines the assault, and walks you through what happened to the teenagers, from their arrest through their exoneration. Burns captures the complexity of history with startling results, yet "The Central Park Five" isn't quite as comprehensive as hoped, and fails to add anything substantively new to the story. Additionally, an element of balance is missing that would have turned a very good documentary into an exceptional one.

"The Central Park Five" presents the facts of the case with clarity, and it is a courageous, revealing look at the often complex and broken legal system in the United States. Unfortunately, there is no avoiding the conclusion presented by historian Craig Steven Wilder: "Rather than tying (the case) up in a bow and thinking that there was something we can take away from it, and that we'll be better people, I think what we really need to realize is that we're not very good people."

A powerful if quiet indictment of a society's failings

[runamokprods · 9/10 · 27 May 2014]

Any story of justice denied, of people wrongfully imprisoned is inherently dramatic. But Ken Burns uses this case of five frightened teen aged boys prodded and manipulated into confessing to a crime they didn't commit to dig into some larger societal issues as well. Yes, the police and prosecutors look bad for the way they mislead the kids into confessions, and then steadfastly refuse to look at other evidence. But the press also comes off badly for exploiting the case to sell papers and satisfy a frightened city's desire for law and order, instead of asking questions when it became clear things simply weren't adding up. And politicians for expressing condemnation and outrage at these young men before they were even (wrongly) convicted. A strong and pointed warning about those times when society's desire for revenge overcomes it's sense of logic, humanity and fairness.

The machinery grinds to its inevitable conclusion...

[AlsExGal · 8/10 · 1 April 2017]

... and that was ponderous to me considering some of the evidence. First, the brutality of the crime - a young woman gang raped and nearly beaten to death with a pipe to the point where even today she has some cognitive problems - grabbed headlines nationwide.

The five young men charged with the crime all confessed. It seemed so open and shut. But there were problems. All five confessions told different accounts of the crime. The crime scene itself showed that there was not enough room for five suspects. And most concerning, the DNA evidence from the crime matched none of the suspects. The prosecution's explanation -there must be a sixth rapist that they didn't catch. The victim herself could not help with any ID because she had been unconscious throughout the attack.

What was not clear to me is how much of this the jury that convicted the five got to hear. Back in 1990, DNA was new, and not really understood by the public like it is today. All five were convicted on all counts and got fairly short sentences considering the brutality of the crime - 5 to 10 years - mainly because all but one was a minor.

In 2002, the actual rapist crossed paths with one of the Central Park Five in prison - they had a short conversation - and the actual rapist began to talk to other cellmates about how these other people were doing time for a rape he had done. It was only then that investigators interviewed him, found his DNA matched that at the crime scene, and that his confession matched every detail of the crime and cleared up some details of the crime that the police had never been able to figure out. Very quickly thereafter the Central Park Five had their convictions vacated. Yes, they could go back to their lives, but they had lost half their teens and all of their 20's. As you get older you realize the worst thing you can waste or be robbed of is time.

There were a few eyebrow raising moments besides the obvious ones. For one, the alibi of the Central Park Five was that they had been beating up and harassing people in another part of Central Park at the time the rape was committed, so these kids were hardly Sunday school teachers. The second eyebrow raising moment was when one African American journalist said that the black community turned against the five because many had been "harassed, raped, pushed around, and pocket book snatched" by young black males. I'm sorry, but what crime does not belong in this list? As long as a community does not see rape as the ultimate violation of a human being, just shy of murder, then any conversation about crime and punishment is probably going to have a disconnect. Then there was Donald Trump (yes THAT Trump) putting full page ads wanting the death penalty. I mean - Really? the woman was not dead, the suspects were minors.

I'd recommend this documentary. It just lets the participants and the facts speak for themselves, like Ken Burns' documentaries usually do. Definitely worth looking at if you remember the crime but only faintly remember the exoneration.

This Is Why You Make Movies

[esparker2000 · 10/10 · 26 November 2012]

You must try your very best to see The Central Park Five. I left it 5 hours ago and I'm still on fire. I have no right words. It might be the best documentary I've ever seen. Or let me put it like this: I've never watched a film that better justified making films in the first place. I just felt like I witnessed 119 minutes of truth-telling that was handled exquisitely from a narrative and visual storytelling perspective.

I almost didn't go. I was tired and I was thinking, you know, I have 3 hours here (my husband was watching our young son) do I really want to spend it focused on tragedy? I am so deeply happy I went. Maysles Cinema screened it at the Dempsey auditorium in Harlem. It was packed to the rafters. Throughout the screening, you never heard a rustle. You never heard a cough. You never saw the light of someone texting. Total, utter rapt attention. And then, we had the Q&A with four of the men. Four full human beings who had so much taken away from them. They filled the stage with their powerful, radiant presence. Sara Burns and David McMahon were there, too, as was Albert Maysles himself. An incredible experience.

I never thought there would be a documentary filmmaker as good a Ken Burns, but I was wrong.

[highelegance · 10/10 · 3 December 2012]

Sarah Burns (Ken Burns' daughter) and her husband, David McMahon along with Ken Burns have managed to create a documentary SO fantastic, SO incredibly moving, SO impassioned, and SO painful to those of us who want to believe in the goodness of man, that I implore you to see it! And once you have, I hope you will learn more about the continued stonewalling by the New York City Justice System to give these 5 fine gentlemen (and I don't use the word "gentlemen" lightly) the justice and apology they so deserve... and follow up with a letter writing campaign. Here's the information you will need: http://wbls.com/A-Call-for-Justice-Central-Park-Jogger-5/14823124 (I have no connection with this website, I'm just someone who was lucky enough to see this documentary at a local theater and wants to do SOMETHING to help!) And to the 5 men: Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Kharey Wise... you are what we should all aspire to... loving, honest, and with a strength of character and strong moral compass that was (and sadly still is) so sadly missing in all those who did you wrong.

One of the best docs in years

[JohnDeSando · 11 January 2013]

In the great Ken Burns tradition, The Central Park Five is a documentary full of detail and a story seamless in drama and heart. With little voice-over narration and smoothly edited testimonies from talking heads, Burns powerfully tells of the five African-American and Latino young men convicted of raping and beating a white female jogger in Central Park on April 20, 1989.

Just like endings last year of another compelling documentary, The Imposter, and the docudramas Argo and Zero Dark Thirty, we know the outcome (their convictions will be vacated by a convict's confession in 2002). Yet, the dramatic tension is constant as we witness prosecutors and police push for convictions in a racially-charged and violent New York desperately needing closure of an infamous crime that exacerbated that tension.

The coercion of underage suspects and rush to judgment stand just behind the actual crime for horrible injustice. Director Burns gets it right by letting the principals, from the accused to attorneys, tell the story. The ending commentary is the only way to exit, with a lament for the years of young lives stolen and the difficulty of the adults becoming part of the mainstream.

Reality is The Central Park Five's reason for being and one of the best documentaries in recent years.

Societal Decay.

[poppad46 · 7/10 · 18 December 2013]

I think this documentary was done well overall. It captures an era in US history when New York City and many US cities were in rapid decline due to the economy, drugs, crime, white flight, etc… What happened with the Central Park Five was the culmination of many factors that ultimately led to their conviction then exoneration. To put things in context, in 1989 NYC was in the midst of an unprecedented crime wave. In 1989 there were 2,244 murders and 5,479 rapes in NYC. In 1989 and even to this day, crime statistics show 90% of all crime in New York is perpetrated by blacks and other minorities, including the criminal that was ultimately convicted of brutally raping and almost beating to death the female white jogger. At the time, Central Park seemed like a piece of calm and safety amid the crime and chaos of NY. The night of the incident, when police got reports of a gang of colored teenagers beating and terrorizing people in the park, they quickly picked up these five kids who were in the area. Under great public pressure to get the sociopath(s) responsible for this heinous crime, the police threw out their code of ethics and justice and unbelievably contrived and then cajoled false confessions out of five naive and susceptible teens and their unwitting parents. Although lacking any physical evidence and with conflicting stories from the teens, with their own contrived video taped confessions, the five teens (scapegoats) were convicted and sentenced to prison. Ultimately, another minority in prison for murder confessed to the crime and the 5 teens were vindicated as being innocent. What this documentary shows is many parts of a society in decay…from the break down of the justice system, the manipulation and railroading of innocent teens by police, the media hype that overlooked the facts, the outrageous level of crime perpetrated by minorities, overzealous prosecutors who want the feather in their cap despite the teens innocence, etc… etc… A good, insightful documentary.

Human honesty, Simplistic Analysis

[mduggan-706-994042 · 8/10 · 7 April 2013]

Korey,Ray Santana (and Ray's father) and the other Five are the stars of this documentary really. Their humanity and suffering is etched in their faces. The story of five innocent boys (14-16) railroaded into confessing to a crime they didn't commit by police and prosecutors that just wanted feathers in their cap must touch the heart of any parent of a teenage boy. That they are ever exonerated comes as a miracle--and has nothing to do with the justice system. Ray's father says it is literally the hand of God, and honestly, this is one of those things that makes you wonder! The best thing about the movie is the men themselves. The trouble is that for Mr. Burns it is all about the racial fault line between black and white. Does he think we don't have any dividing lines up here in NH? Has he noticed the trailer parks hidden behind pine trees? All white people, definitely divided. I lived in NYC in 1990, and there was another headline blaring then about a white mob killing an innocent black man. The prosecutors in that case were also falling all over themselves making political hay. A person reading the headlines in both cases (Bensonhurst and Central Park 5) would have their blood boiling within 3 seconds. Meanwhile, more and more people in NYC spoke Spanish, Hindi, Chinese. We actually all took the subways together and were often courteous to one another, trapped like sardines, while holding our tabloids which screamed headlines that suggested, "stick to your own kind." It was less and less about black and white, but the tabloids never got that, and Mr. Burns doesn't either. He's sort of a reverse tabloid. But Korey and Ray and Antron and Kevin and Yussef are extraordinary people, and I thank Mr. Burns and his daughter Sara for permitting us to know their story. And this is more complicated than anything Mr. Burns has made before, so everyone should see it.

"I just wanted to go home"

[doug_park2001 · 7/10 · 17 February 2014]

I remember the skeptical tone of one news report I read in 2002, when the Central Park Five ("CP5") were exonerated due to Matias Reyes's confession to the 1989 assault and rape of Trisha Meili. The majority of people (including myself) who gave the story a cursory glance seemed doubtful about a serial rapist who was already serving a life sentence--i.e., with nothing left to lose by making a false confession--meeting one of the CP5 by chance in prison and taking the blame in order to clear the names of several young men who must have been properly convicted some years earlier. "What did Reyes get in return?" many of us wondered, ignoring the facts that all of the CP5 had already completed their sentences for the rape and near-murder of Meili--though one of them was incarcerated for a later drug trafficking offense and just happened to meet Reyes in prison--and that Reyes's DNA matched the profile found at the crime scene.

THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE is very important in showing the other side of the story. It definitely has its slant, as any documentary will, but it makes a strong argument for the basic fact that five teenaged boys were convicted solely because of coerced and contradictory confessions to the crime after hours of being interrogated and played off against one another with a complete disregard for the lack of direct evidence against them. It clearly shows how this can and does happen far more often than many of us want to think. It's also very revealing of how dangerous public emotion and outrage, regardless of its focus, can be.

Unfortunately, the NYPD, the prosecutors in the case, and everyone else responsible for the convictions declined to speak to Directors Ken and Sarah Burns, which is very telling but also limits the scope of the film. THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE is dominated by interviews with the CP5 and their relatives, obviously a crucial ingredient, but it becomes repetitive. There are, however, important comments from then-Mayor Ed Koch, who was all for conviction and serious punishment of the CP5 in 1989 but has now apparently changed his mind. The brief input by NYC historian Craig Steven Wilder and several others also adds a great deal.

One of the strongest aspects of THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE is the brief sociological perspective of New York City's racially polarized, have/have-not environment during the 1970s and 80s. Not only is it elucidating in its own right, it also provides background and something in the way of explanation for the wrongful conviction of the CP5.

Some of the more negative reviews have criticized THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE simply for being "boring," and at the risk of sounding crass, I see what they mean. While this is an important miscarriage of justice that should not be ignored, the repetitiveness and narrow scope of the film will inevitably limit its mass appeal. Anyone with a serious interest in this case and wrongful convictions in general, however, will probably find its two-hour length well-worth sitting through.

More analysis of the details that led to the wrongful convictions would have been helpful, e.g., the term "wilding." One of the CP5 confessed to police that he and a number of others were "wilding" in Central Park on the night of the crime. The term "wilding" is roughly equivalent to "raising hell," the usual term-of-choice when I was a kid in the late '70s/early '80s. "Raising hell" could, of course, refer to anything from driving fast, drinking beer, and talking loudly and irreverently (as we meant it) to violent felonies. More discussion of how misinterpretations of the loose term "wilding" were a critical factor in the conviction would have added some depth to this documentary.

Compelling and Disturbing

[jcnsoflorida · 8/10 · 11 August 2013]

I was leery of this despite a friend's recommendation. I didn't live in NY at the time and basically ignored the news reports. So, this film I found fascinating, should be required for all law students and certainly worthwhile for everyone else. It could have been 5 or 10 minutes shorter but frankly I feel that way about most films. I had a bit of confusion sorting out the Five and their adult selves. (One of them changed to or from a Muslim-sounding name, I think). Also it's a very interesting portrait of NYC circa 1990. I'd like to know more about why the civil case is still "unresolved". The tone of the film is indignant but, more importantly, it is truth-seeking. That's why it's so compelling: we viewers want to find out what happened.

Makes for riveting and gob-smacking viewing

[tomgillespie2002 · 7/10 · 6 June 2014]

Social injustice and the failure of the justice system has long been a favourite topic for documentary film-makers. It's been done to death, sometimes raising enough attention for the case that it leads directly or indirectly to releasing the incarcerated (The Thin Blue Line (1988), the Paradise Lost trilogy (1996-2011)), or exposes enough holes in the story to make you doubt the effectiveness of police interrogation and/or the legal system as a whole (Brother's Keeper (1992), Capturing the Friedmans (2003)). It's estimated that 10,000 innocent people go to jail every year, so naturally, this kind of thing keeps rearing it's ugly head, and it makes for riveting and gob-smacking viewing.

The 'Central Park Five' are Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise, youths aged between 13-15 in 1989, who found themselves in the wrong place, in the wrong city, at the wrong time. Trisha Meili, a young jogger running through Central Park, New York, was viciously beaten, raped, and left for dead by Matias Reyes, a notorious rapist who confessed to the crime years later. The five boys were in a group of 30 or so others, some causing havoc and attacking people, when the police descended on them. Through long and intense interrogations, the five made false confessions to witnessing the crime, incriminating one another with the promise of being allowed to go home.

The first hour of The Central Park Five is its finest. Ken Burns, directing here with his daughter Sarah and her husband David McMahon, is a historian at heart, digging out terrific archive footage of a city consumed by crime and racial tension, in the midst of the AIDS outbreak and the savage crack wars. The young boys, all black or Latino, were nothing but scapegoats for the NYPD, who were looking for a quick and tidy conviction. The brutal witch-hunt they suffered following their arrest, and the lazy role of the press - labelling the boys actions before the assault as 'wildings' and failing to do any real investigating of their own - is representative of the social and racial divide. This was a time when the city averaged six homicides a day.

There is also a wealth of footage showing the boys' 'confessions', which are fascinating to see unravel. There is a special moment when Korey Wise is shown a picture of the victim's bruised and battered head, and the sound that leaves his mouth leaves you in doubt of his incapability of committing such an act. The second half of the film left me frustrated. There are no big, satisfying moments of anyone getting their just deserts, and the Five, now released from prison and cleared of guilt, shows a startling lack of bitterness to the ordeal they experienced. There's certainly a lack of anger to the film, both by those involved and the directors, and it leaves things a little cold. But perhaps that's the point, that reality really is that harsh, and closure is hard to come by.

www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

Denial of a fundamental rite

[sbrad4510 · 10/10 · 22 September 2013]

This is a taut and suspenseful piece of documentation. It will get your dander up. Especially if you believe in the democratic principals of freedom and justice. It's about five young men whose fundamental rite of passage was stripped from them. They were forced to spend their formative years being caught up in a justice system gone awry. That precious time of life when we get to decide who we are and what we are to become. Those transformative years between 13 and 18 when we get to make the declaration of 'I Am'! If you're left wondering 'Who am I' at the end of that period something has been stolen from you that can never be replaced. That's what this documentary is ultimately about-and it will leave you questioning 'Who are we'? That boys lives can be compromised-the promise of becoming. You can almost see the direct correlation between The Central Park Five and Trayvon Martin, African and Latino American boys being denied the rite of becoming. It is a human tragedy of which we all should feel some sense of shame.

Miscarriage Of Justice, Myopic Film

[crossbow0106 · 6/10 · 14 June 2013]

As someone who lived in New York at the time, this was a big story at the time and it has resonated through the years as a miscarriage of justice. Told at a languid pace, Social Psychologist Saul Kassin is probably the best thing about the film, as he explains why certain things were done and said (and intimated). What is less understood is the incredulity of some of the former defendants that they were accused of the crime and that they were interrogated for so long. This is standard police procedure to "break down" a suspect until they confess. And, they did confess. While these confessions turned out to be lies/fantasy, the film is trying to blame the police for this (their confessions were videotaped). Wrong place at the wrong time, and that is sad. The film is not bad, but it seems to be almost like it was done in a myopic manner, way too one sided. Of course the police etc declined to comment, but that makes the film a lot less effective. Also, and it has to be said, re-visiting this case brings back bad memories for everyone. So, if you did not know about the case, it is somewhat interesting, but if you were in New York then, its like looking at a documentary of the Bernie Goetz subway shooting in 1984. Its still a tough thing to revisit.

Burns' 'Mickey Mouse', sanitized version of events will impress those who eschew complexity

[Turfseer · 4/10 · 20 January 2013]

'The Central Park Five' is noted documentarian Ken Burns' take on the infamous arrest, subsequent trial and eventual legal exoneration of five minority youths accused in the assault and rape of a Central Park jogger in 1989. It's Burns' position that in a haste to make arrests, the investigating detectives and representatives from the NYC DA's office, 'force fed' their own versions of events and 'coerced' the youths to make statements implicating themselves, both in written and (in some of the defendants' cases) videotaped confessions. Burns is also satisfied with the confession of serial killer Matias Reyes, who claimed he acted alone and whose DNA was linked directly to the Central Park jogger.

For those looking for easy answers, 'The Central Park Five' upon first glance seems to tie things up quite nicely, making the case that the five youths were victims not only of a police and DA's office 'rush to judgment', but of being victims of the racism endemic in society as a whole. Burns trots out the five victims who all seem fairly articulate and reasonable as they recount their stories from their perspective as adults.

One of the problems that Burns fails to explore in enough detail is that the Central Park Five (CPF) were not only convicted of rape (in most cases) but also assaulting other people in the park that night. Burns and the CPF want you to believe that they merely observed two serious assaults in the park and acted 'shocked' by the brutality of the mob. The CPF all insisted during the documentary, that they were not guilty and that's why they all refused to accept a plea bargain from the DA's office prior to trial. Nonetheless, on February 9, 1994, at his PAROLE HEARING, Raymond Santana (one of the CPF) denied the rape but READILY ADMITTED that he and seven or eight of his friends planned to go to the park to rob and assault people. He also admitted that they let one man go because he was with his girlfriend and also admitted (he himself) had beat a man.

When Anton McCray went before the parole board, in November 1994, he also admitted all the crimes in the park except the rape. In 2002, Kevin Richardson and Santana were interviewed by detectives and they both admitted their participation in the assaults but the not the rapes. Just as an example, 23 people were identified as participating on the assault of a victim, Antonio Diaz in the park. Numerous accomplices implicated all five defendants; both Richardson and McCray admitted participation and Salaam and Wise, admitted being present and Santana observed some "commotion" in the distance.

Another fact about the case that Burns conveniently ignores is that only two of the CPF, Richardson and Santana, were actually arrested in the park. How is it, that the other three were eventually linked to the two found in the park? Long before the alleged 'coercion' during the DA interviews, there was obvious PROBABLE CAUSE to arrest the other three. That's because when police initially encountered the mob of kids, only Santana (and separately charged Stephen Lopez), remained at the scene. They were observed to be 'wide-eyed' and in 'shock'. Richardson fled and was apprehended. On the way to the precinct, Richardson (and another youth, Clarence Thomas) both fingered McCray as the 'murderer'. Statements by Richardson and others implicated both Santana and Lopez as being part of the mob. Later, the other three were linked by Richardson and Santana, as well as other witnesses, to each other.

In watching 'The Central Park Five', you'll get the distinct impression that the defendants were 'railroaded'; that there was no opportunity for them to dispute their allegations that the initial arrest was invalid, their statements were obtained by trickery or outright deception, the Family Court Act and Criminal Procedure Law provisions mandating parental notification and presence during questioning were not followed, false promises were made that they would be released, physical force was used and they were deprived of food and sleep. In reality, there was a six week pre-trial hearing involving testimony from twenty-nine prosecution witnesses, testimony from Wise, Richardson, Santana and Salaam, Lopez, parents, siblings, relatives and friends of the defendants. Judge Galligan found, except for one instance, there were no grounds to suppress any of the statements or evidence taken from the statements. You can read about all the motions the defense submitted in their attempt to suppress evidence and why almost all of their motions failed. It's chronicled in this special report at Findlaw.com commissioned by the Police Commissioner for the purpose of determining whether the new evidence indicated that police supervisors or officers acted improperly or incorrectly: news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/cpjgr/nypd12703jgrrpt.pdf.

Despite all the claims during the documentary that the CPF were "coerced", only Kharey Wise claimed he was "fed" answers. As the prosecutor pointed out during the trial, "McCray testified that the police said he should put himself in it, and that was all the information that was given to Antron McCray about what he was supposed to put in his statement." If Burns is guilty of the sin of omission, he's on far shakier ground when he asserts as fact, that there was some kind of 'time line' that contradicted the police and DA version of events. The Findlaw report concluded otherwise: "In fact, no accurate time line can be constructed because the evidence regarding the timing of the various events and the individuals who participated in them is not sufficiently precise to allow any exact conclusion."

'The Central Park Five' is the 'Mickey Mouse' version of what happened. In reality, the entire story is extremely complex. Read the Findlaw report if you're interested in DETAILS. Otherwise, watch Burns' sanitized version. A civil lawsuit is still pending, with all defendants seeking compensation. If they can prove their case, they deserve all the compensation in the world. Let the chips fall where they may.

Reliving this horrific case through the eyes of the wrongfully convicted

[BrianDanaCamp · 14 June 2014]

As someone who remembers this case well, it's pretty sobering to be faced with these five men 23 years after the fact recounting their version of events that occurred when they were teens and hard not to feel sorry for them. Worse, one can't help but wonder how such a miscarriage of justice could have happened with everybody watching. All I can think is that these boys were handy scapegoats for a decade of out-of-control crime and violence in New York and they became sacrificial lambs. Somebody had to pay the price. These five just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, admittedly doing the wrong thing (running with a mob of teens committing random attacks on white joggers and bicyclists), and the cops needed convenient suspects who were young and vulnerable enough to be manipulated into confessing to the most serious crime that occurred that night. Their convictions and a handful of other high-profile incidents during the Dinkins administration paved the way for the election of Rudolph Giuliani as mayor and a new era of proactive law enforcement and a relentless stop-and-frisk campaign aimed at black and Latino men in the city's poorer communities.

Does the film make its case without flaws? No. The deck is too stacked. They should have allowed some representative of the police or D.A.'s office to explain themselves. Michael F. Armstrong, counsel for the NYPD, says he spent half-a-day being interviewed on camera for the film and was then not included in the final cut. Some attention should have been given to what these five boys were doing in the park that night and what other crimes they themselves might have been implicated in. Yes, they describe some acts they saw being committed by other boys and either outright deny their involvement or couch it in vague terms. I think it would have been good to know if the police had direct evidence of these boys' participation in other crimes that night. For one thing, it would mean these kids might not have been the saints they're made out to be, which of course doesn't justify false accusations and wrongful convictions, as the most vocal critics of this film seem to think, but it means recognizing a significant gray area here. If they actually did participate in the mob violence that night, some attention might have been usefully paid to the whole issue of how seemingly otherwise good kids from poor but stable homes with fathers present in their lives can get caught up in that kind of lawlessness.

Also, more importantly, they should have had some expert on hand to address the whole phenomenon of false or coerced confessions and give their objective assessment of this particular case and perhaps give other known examples of established false confessions, just to provide some context and answer those critics who stand by the notion of absolute guilt based on confession. It's touched on in a couple of the interviews, but not by a recognized expert on the issue and not in any depth.

Still, it's a powerful piece and has far fewer Ken Burns-style gimmicks than we see in his other films. He manages to stay out of his own way for much of the time and let the interview subjects have their say. Maybe that's a result of having directorial collaborators.

Will leave you angry and asking for justice to be served

[david-byrne · 8/10 · 18 August 2013]

A very well made documentary. It chronicles the entire event from the innocent youths being rounded up by the corrupt New York cops or prosecutor, to the mens' exoneration and beyond. It was well put together and the footage and newspaper articles were clearly represented. The victim interviews show them for what they are - innocent kids used as scapegoats and forced into confession for a crime they did not commit. The sense of injustice abounds, especially when the crooks in suits knew they had the wrong people, but went ahead with it anyway. It leaves one feeling angered and somewhat helpless, that you cannot defeat an enemy like the corrupt American justice system - especially when the system is proved wrong but refuses to show remorse or make amends, as so often happens (varies by state).

The documentary leaves the city of New York as a city of shame, one where justice is corrupt, especially for blacks and Hispanics. I was left feeling that they could happily put a bullet in the head of the prosecutor and the cops as payment for their services rendered - but these men are more decent human beings than any of the prosecutor and the corrupt police, the media and anyone else who treated them as rapist monsters. Unfortunately, no compensation has been paid to any of the victims as the City of New York does its utmost to ensure justice will not be done. It needs to protect its wallet and the phony reputation of New York's "finest". I doubt I will ever want to visit New York, the city of shame.

Bigotry on Review

[Hitchcoc · 10/10 · 14 January 2024]

I see that several reviewers challenged the conclusions that the police acted wrongly in this case. It was so easy to deprive these children of their rights by intimidation and lies. Much easier than doing their jobs. The verdict was in before there was a trial. One prominent New Yorker, who shall remain nameless, began a vendetta against them. It came out in the wash (which seldom happens) and showed these lazy jerks for what they were. So someone is not supposed to do a documentary if they have an agenda. Show me one of those. Most documentaries are born out of racism, terrorism, and dehumanization by a dominant culture or society. Watch this!

Wronged!

[jacquelineguzman9 · 10/10 · 3 February 2013]

First ,I would like to say that I have not watched this film, yet. I was privileged to know Mr. Raymond Santana in our teens. I also had an acquaintance with Mr. Salaam's younger brother in Isaac Newton Junior High School. When this happened, I never felt in my heart that it was true, or even possible from what I knew of these young men. I was shocked to hear of this film from my french professor in my college English class. I said to myself that this is so far from what these outside people live like, so they don't really understand the injustices afflicted upon minority men in the ghetto. I've always hated that this happened to my friend, but sadly I know it will still happen to many more young minority men. To all of my brothers: Please Be Careful! Educate Yourselves! Become Grandfathers :)

Set Up And Let Down

[Lejink · 7/10 · 28 June 2019]

I came to this 2012 Ken Burns documentary after watching the 2019 high-profile Netflix TV series "When They See Us" which dramatised the actual events related here. Told mainly through the testimony of the five young men wrongly incarcerated for the rape and vicious attack on a female jogger in Central Park in 1989, it naturally eschewed any dramatic reconstruction of the events, instead letting actual words and contemporary newspaper and TV reports of the time carry the story.

Made not long before the city of New York, without admitting any wrongdoing on its part, made a multi-million dollar settlement to the five, I would like to think this film helped that decision, incomplete as it is, to be made as well as perhaps inspiring the TV show. The documentary obviously has an agenda to clear the boys, the logic of which is irrefutable, but fails to interview any of those who supported and indeed still stand by the original decisions at the two separate trials which put the boys away, such as prosecutors Fairstein and Lederer and a certain, since elevated, property tycoon who from his ivory tower, paid for full-page newspaper adverts demonising the defendants.

The five, only four of whom allowed themselves to be filmed, speak eruditely and passionately about their shared experiences and relate in detail the terrible treatment they received and the awful miscarriages of justice which befell them. Not all of them appear to have come through unscathed.

Grim and depressing to watch for the most part, one only hopes that like the unfortunate victim herself, they come through this terrible experience and live something approaching a normal life from now on and that the railroading tactics employed here by people in authority who should have known better are never repeated, although I have my doubts about that.

My opinions

[steelerslovf · 8/10 · 12 October 2014]

Central Park Five is very interesting documentary that is about a 1989 rape case and trial that occurred in Central park where five teenage African-American and Latino boys were convicted for sexually assaulting a white woman. Having spent 6-13 years each behind bars. A serial rapist confessed to the crime. Nevertheless, these boys were falsely convicted of a crime they did not participate in, and were stripped of their lives due to the corruption of police interrogations, and racism. As I watched this film I was compelled with the amount of pathos that Ken and Sarah Burns used in the film. From all of the stories of how the kids felt when they were going through the trial and the interrogations to all the images of and footages of them in these interrogations. Watching the videos and seeing the expressions on their faces really made me feel for them. But on top of all of this, the film made me really upset with the way that the police system was at the time. Having no real evidence that the five guys were connected to this case, they were able to persuade the kids to say what the police wanted to hear. The police did the wrong thing and everybody knows it. While listening to the interviews you can tell that the stories did not line up and some of the kids were nervous enough that they were unsure of what they were saying and second-guessing themselves. On top of that the police assumed they were the guilty party when they found them. Now as the film says there were other people in and around the park at the time, but they got a party of five African American teenage guys, that were walking around. Now how does that not fit profiling? Or how about racism? That is racism mostly at its finest, they found a group of "sketchy" African Americans and arrested them, and eventually convicted them with no real proof that they all did it. This made me upset, no I'm not African American but I feel like most people that it was unjust for them to do this and racism is not right in anyway, and it would get under anybody's nerves. Luckily the right guy did come out but only 13 years after the fact. But they did give the guys money for the time spent in jail so isn't that fair for them? not at all they took away the main part of a persons life. They took away there late teens and most of the there young adult years where most people learn the most of who they are and how to live in the world. These are times that will never be able to get back and nobody will ever be able to repay them with that experience.

Play stupid games

[jaycop · 6/10 · 7 July 2019]

I am only 1/3 into it but just wanted to comment after reading other comments.. the group self admittedly to acts of violence being committed and running from police... why wouldn't they be suspects?? Secondly, Ken burns does an excellent job with time lines in his documentaries...

Prosecution-Addicted NYPD Scapegoats Four 14-Year-Olds and One 16-Year-Old

[classicalsteve · 9/10 · 9 June 2019]

In April of 1989, about 30 young underage blacks picked the wrong night to go to Central Park. Most of them were just screwing around, breaking bottles, play fighting with each other. Not harmless but not exactly lethal. A few of them decided to escalate their behavior. They beat up some people, and stole and vandalized property. These are serious offenses, maybe the kinds of acts which might get you 30 to 90 days in jail, or maybe the rest of the schoolyear in Juvenile Hall. Yes these were stupid and criminal acts but they were not perpetrated by all 30 of the youngsters, and these were not crimes warranting decades of incarceration. This documentary chronicles the wrongful convictions of five juveniles, four African-Americans and one Latino, for the rape and attempted murder of a white upper-middle-class jogger, a crime which happened to take place amidst the other mayhem.

The main reason this was the wrong night for these young blacks was because, unbeknownst to them, a young professional, a Phi-Beta Kappa no less, was being raped and nearly murdered at near the same time in Central Park. She had been on a routine jog. The police rounded up five of the young blacks for disorderly conduct and destruction of property and possible assault. It appears the approximately 25 others escaped but they captured five of them and drove them to headquarters. They were going to be charged with the crimes committed by the others. Again, evidence reveals that not all of them were involved in the crimes of assault and disorderly conduct, only some of them.

But then there's a twist. Police decided the five juveniles who were arrested for the crimes committed by some of the rest of the group, destruction of property, assault, etc, had also raped and nearly murdered the jogger. NYPD was going to prove what an exemplary and model institution its police and investigation units were in not only arresting these "hoodlums" but also solving the jogger-rape case simultaneously. This was going to be a home run for NYPD. At the time, New York was fighting a crime spree.

According to the documentary, the five juveniles (the oldest was 16 while the others were 14) and their families believed they would be released. But when the story of the rape victim was entered into the gumbo of crimes, the police wanted confessions, and coerced the juveniles to cooperate. Four signed confessions and five were video-taped giving confessions which were dictated to them by the police.

First off, the suspects were juveniles. They were not given a chance to speak with their parents prior to their confessions. They were never given the opportunity to speak to an attorney which I thought was required by law. An attorney could have told them that any taped, video-taped and/or signed confession could be used against them in a court of law. However they were told that if they wanted to "go home" they had to sign the confessions. They had been in custody for about a day and a half, which is an eternity to most youngster that age. Almost none of their confessions matched up with the others and even contradicted known facts about the rape. They did accuse the others of committing the rape. Also, a DNA test of the rapist's sperm didn't match any of the five. No worries, said the prosecutors. We'll say there was 6th as yet unknown assailant. Trouble was, the confessions didn't describe a sixth rapist.

The only evidence linking them to this specific crime was their signed confessions. Unfortunately the jury found their confessions credible and found them guilty. Only one juror dissented but was persuaded by the others to go along, according to this juror's interview. Not only was the NYPD convinced of their guilt, all the country believed they were guilty in the court of public opinion. Only after more the five served more than 10 years in prison did the true perpetrator, who actually continued to rape and murder after the initial crime, confess to raping the jogger. But even then, several of the prosecutors wanted to "hold" to their belief in the original five's guilt.

Investigators and prosecutors Elizabeth Lederer and Linda Fairstein appear to be instrumental in the coercion of wrongful and fabricated "confessions" by the five. Because of the new Netflix docudrama "When They See Us", public opinion has turned against them. Fairstein in particular, a writer of mystery novels, was dropped by her publisher. Some posted online that it was "unfair" that Lederer's and Fairstein's lives be ruined by only "one mistake". That one mistake cost five teenagers the rest of their childhood and part of their adulthood. Also consider, that that's not how the judicial system operates. Even if someone gave millions to charity, if you shoot someone in cold blood, whatever wonderful things you may have done before have little or no baring on the case, except maybe you might get a more lenient sentence. Careers are typically destroyed by convictions. So to convict someone else wrongfully is actually a crime, and it seems the prosecutors and police who were involved should have faced some kind of penalties for not allowing the suspects at least the opportunity to speak to an attorney. Being forced to resign would be minimal! Lederer in particular still works with NYPD. I guarantee anyone reading this would want the right to consult with an attorney to be honored if they were ever arrested for a crime they didn't commit. It's easy to say "let the guilty hang!" until it's you.

Fascinating to watch but could have been better.

[brenton-noakes · 6/10 · 17 December 2013]

I watched this last night and I've now had a chance to step back and consider this documentary more carefully. Overall I feel that it really could've been produced far better in several ways but having said that it certainly keeps you watching from start to finish and would recommend it to anyone to watch.

I viewed this knowing nothing about this case beforehand & I was left with the feeling that this was really a documentary that was unfortunately one sided and produced primarily to present to the viewers the great wrong-doing that was done to the 5 kids who were wrongly convicted.

Much of the documentary is giving voice to the victims of this case and as another review already mentions no one from the other side such as officers or layers or in fact anyone at all that could of given an alternative perspective, was part of this documentary. So therefor we are left with a very one sided view and it really didn't allow us to understand the motivations and reasons to why this happened to these 5 people other than the more obvious reasons that the documentary presents.

What I felt would of really brought this documentary alive was to give some perspective onto the pressures and life of the convicting police officers during this time and to delve more into the experience of the kids growing up in prison knowing you have been wrongly convicted. We didn't find out much about their experience in prison at all.

But again having said this I would still recommend this documentary and for me it once again highlights and makes you consider how society and we as individuals then, now and all through history in fact, love to witness a horrible crime and find at all costs the individual or individuals on which the guilt rests; which is why even as a viewer we have such strong reactions to this.

…………

"As you see him, you will see yourself ... As you think of him you will think of yourself … for in him you will find yourself or lose yourself." ACIM (T-8.III.4:2-5)

Just filled with nothing but...

[MovieCriticOnline · 1/10 · 16 June 2020]

.... Lies. It's so sad to see Ken Burns take his respected career and make this propaganda.

Not only is there no evidence they were coerced into their confession. Like none. Their parents were there. You think their parents would allow them to admit they did something they didn't? And this is after MULTIPLE interviews before they finally went on video.

But let's assume they were coerced. From the time they were interviewed to trial was about a year. You mean that they went along with their forced false confession for all that time even with lawyers trying to defend them? At no point did they say, oh, I actually didn't do it, but the cops forced me to say I did. And none of their lawyers raise the issue of them maybe not having done it? It's ridiculous.

If you believe that, you need a reality check.

Second, both the victim and the doctors said there were more than one person doing it, so the later confession is not believable.

But even if you believe all the foregoing, they still admitted to beating and robbing multiple people that day, and then they got out and made millions and have become martyrs? This is just ridiculous.

I am no fan of documentaries that have an agenda. Just present all the facts and evidence and don't try to emotionally manipulate the audience feelings one way or the other like they did here and so many newer documentaries. It's lazy and dishonest filmmaking.

They are not innocent and no way heroes or "survivors."