LA 92
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6794424/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Twenty-five years after the verdict in the Rodney King trial sparked several days of protests, violence and looting in Los Angeles, filmmakers examine that tumultuous period through rarely seen archival footage.
I found that this documentary film has somewhat ideal timing on Netflix given what's currently happening in the USA and all over the world. Now I was fairly young when the LA riots broke out so seeing a lot of this for the first time was pretty crazy. I mean it starts with the amateur footage of the beating of Rodney King, and soon after, the Killing of Latasha Harlins. It also goes on to show the court cases of both. To think that Latasha's killer, a store owner who thought she was stealing juice pulled a gun on a 15 year old while he back was turned and then shoot her is simply shocking. Then to think her killer simply got 400 hours community service and a $500 fine? That made me angry. It doesn't matter whether or not she is a flight risk, the lady killed a 15 year old girl and needed to be brought to justice.
Then you see the reactions when the 4 officers who beat up Rodney King are let off... you can just see the black people, particularly the older ones who had tears in their eyes, lose faith in the US justice system, and you can tell all hell is about to break lose. You can feel it coming, but when you see the footage of what people had done, you can simply see how bad things are. There were people in their cars simply driving who got beat up for no reason by absolute animals who think that they're doing this for Rodney King. It's absolutely sick. Footage I had never seen before, and then you see the mass damage done by looters. They'd loot from a shop, then to add insult to injury, they'd set it on fire. There was even an older African American guy who was heart broken. He said "I came from the ghetto just like all of you, I'm trying to make it, so why are you stealing my store and my computer?" - the LAFD and LAPD could not cope with the amount of trouble that was being caused and the National Guard was being delayed because they didn't have enough ammunition (like that's really going to be a problem... they're not actually going to shoot anyone given the circumstance).
Anyway the documentary overall is a real eye-opener to those of us who haven't seen it, and even those of us who may remember it, I still recommend this as a lot of the vision is never seen before. Very, very emotional.
It's a documentary but I'll give the production an 9/10 - very highly recommended.