Shadows of doubt documentary crack#

In the end, the film fails to prove SimmonsвЂ™ guilt or innocence. Vincent Simmons featured a corrupt or markedly lax prosecution that was contemptuous of due process, clashing with an overburdened and largely disinterested defense. ItвЂ™s almost a cliche by now, I suppose, but the most damning indictment the film offers up is directed at our overburdened and at times blatantly racist criminal justice system. In the end, the film wisely refuses to pass judgment. More to the point, the film gives the embattled prosecutors a chance to respond to SimmonвЂ™s evidence responses that are about as limp as SimmonsвЂ™ alibi but responses regardless. While there is clearly some wriggle room for Simmons, itвЂ™s also equally clear that he wasnвЂ™t exactly a stellar citizen at the time of the crime. вЂњShadows of DoubtвЂќ lays out the evidence as best it can. And muddied it stays, even as the film heads for its wrenching, mutually unsatisfactory behind-bars encounter between the sisters and Simmons. Instead of sharpening the caseвЂ™s focus, however, each interview with those involved only further muddied the water. StackвЂ™s production company then hired private investigator Jimmy Reynolds to re-examine the case. Stack first introduced the world to Simmons in his 1998 Academy Award-nominated documentary вЂњThe Farm: Angola, USA.вЂќ One of six inmates featured in the film, viewers and Stack alike were haunted by a harrowing parole board sequence in which the board members blithely refused to consider potentially exonerating evidence about the rape conviction that Simmons had spent years compiling. That neither happens is the most frustrating aspect of Jonathan StackвЂ™s haunting documentary, as well as the most powerful.

Shadows of doubt documentary crack#

We wait breathlessly, either for the crack in the story that will spring Simmons from his unjust imprisonment or for the Perry Mason moment that inescapably proves SimmonsвЂ™ guilt. As we learn the premise of вЂњShadows of DoubtвЂќ - that accused rapist Vincent Simmons, a black man who steadfastly maintains his innocence, will at last be meeting Karen and Sharon Sanders, the white twin sisters whom he allegedly raped twenty-two years earlier in Marksville, Louisiana - weвЂ™re primed for that closure.

WeвЂ™ve become a highly suspicious society one that craves вЂњclosureвЂќ at almost any cost.