rzajac It's nice to know how legal/justice systems can run so badly off the rails.Had this thought: It is now May of 2017, and the U.S. has a "president" who often, on the stump, expressed the supreme value of "winning".This flick shows *exactly* why "winning" can never function as a standalone value. The prosecutor who went after Adams valued winning over all else... certainly over simple justice.I would say that is the moral of the story of The Thin Blue Line. Others will tell you it's about injustice or Due Process short-cutting or an illustration of how the Wild West ain't dead in Dallas. Those things are also true, but you have to understand where those things came from: They came (and likely still come) from an ethos of winning as a supreme value/virtue.I like shaggy dog stories which are extended parables on a simple moral idea, and that's what The Thin Blue Line is. This is Morris's bailiwick. He's passionately interested in finding a kind of universal equation of morality, and TTBL is a stepping stone in this quest.It's a certain kind of product, to be sure. It's a documentary: If you don't like documentaries, don't waste your time. But Morris expertly puts the material together, interlacing it with graphics, establishing shots, and reenactments to make the piece hum with subjective moral urgency. If that sounds like it might redeem the genre, then give it a go. Just be sure you're poised to pay very close attention.This was Morris's first proper, full- length treatment, and my introduction to his work. Took my mom and some buddies to watch it at The Inwood, probably a half a kilometer from where Officer Wood was shot.

Red_Identity Considering the acclaim for this, perhaps I expected something a little more unconventional. The film, is certainly a fabulous mood piece. The director is not afraid to have different recreations based on different peoples' memories, and he certainly revels in trying to come up with the ambiguities in all of the films. The film does start off ambiguous by the start, but somewhere along the way the scales tip in one side and you're then firmly planted on one of the two sides, and all of this is of course intentional, and there is enough speculation to make you confident in your belief but still not actual evidence, which does leave the whole thing open by the end.

Jane Louise Byfield I'm not going to knock the incredible injustice. The story itself is not boring it's just the way they told which was dull, it just put me to sleep. They also repeatedly showed reenactments of the crime. I keep thinking something different is going to happen from the last time they showed it but no. I don't get why they had to keep showing the same thing over and over. Even those telling the story kept repeating what they'd already said. I am sure this could have been made into a 30 minute documentary if everything wasn't repeated. I really struggled to stay awake watching this. I am very surprised it's got such a high rating. The only positive I can say is it will probably make a good movie.

david_bettoney I am in UK and - to some degree - this film was spoilt for me by the diction of many of the "cast" - how much better this would have been with added subtitles. The overall thrust of the film however is worrying. In another case (and sadly i cannot now trace the reference) a US Judge said - on appeal - "innocence is not enough to overturn a jury verdict".As someone else said there was a desire to convict at almost any price and kill someone for the death of a policeman. This was possibly the attitude in UK in the 1950s and 1960s when miscarriages occurred with the knowledge (if not full understanding) of the police.I believe that in US the DA is an elected official and this may have a lot to do with the failures "it takes an excellent prosecutor to convict an innocent man".Hopefully in UK and US these days things are better. I do not hold my breath though