77 Minutes

source: 77 Minutes

The only tragedy worse than this directors angle is the incident that took place at McDonalds. This egomaniacal director handles the interviews, inserting himself into the conversation at every opportunity. The majority of his questions aren't really questions, they're more guided 'don't you think...' type editorializations inserted to get his point across. He even has the audacity at one point to ask an interviewee if what he was doing by not giving the shooters name any air time was something the interviewee thought was a good thing. The point being made by the director, poorly I must say, was that the police responded too slowly. Monday morning Quarterbacks know everything. Read the wiki page about this tragedy, save yourself two hours.

It was interesting to see some footage and some interviews about this horrible event that I had never seen before. Seeing the director continually go after the police about something that A) he doesn't understand and B) only based on rumor, is kind of appalling in a documentary. The fault of this horrible moment in history lies with Huberty and the director trying to blame other people while making sure he's in front of the camera A LOT, says this is agenda driven.

Charlie Minn directed and produced this film which focuses on the stories of the victims of the 1984 McDonald's massacre. The shooter's name is never mentioned in the film. Minn said his goal was to get the victims' stories out there and he was very successful at reaching that goal. The film is filled with many excellent interviews with victims, police, friends and family of the victims. I found Minn's interviewing techniques interesting since he included many controversies as part of his questions. From complaints over slow police response times to the huge question of why the police allowed the shooting to go on for 77 minutes...Minn approaches these and other concerns honestly and in a straight forward manner. Some questions are answered while others are left up to the viewer to decide on. I was also impressed by the fact that the film contained no active violence but instead focused on the result such extreme violence has on people and on a community! As you might expect, the film is very difficult...but very important. Actual police footage of the carnage is included as part of the film so I do not recommend it for young children. I hope the viewing of this film will lead people to have conversations about why we continue to have mass shootings.

Seventy seven minutes is depicting the massacre that occurred in San Ysidro, California in 1984. This documentary is based on the victims of the massacre. You never learn the name of the shooter. It is a sober and serious analysis given from the victims point of view. Facts unknown are shown in this documentary. This was a hate crime massacre. It was directed to immigrants of Mexican origin. It was not published as such. It reveals data unknown. It opens your eyes to reality when events unfold and they are not like in the movies. The pain afterwards this massacre in San Ysidro left an eternal mark on the survivors. It is a great documentary!!!!!

This was a story that needed told. The director started out with good intentions by never saying the perpetrators name and focusing on the victims, the events, the response, and the aftermath. His apparent outline is good. However the execution was a completely biased loosing all credibility as a "documentary" when he started in with the accusations and using sources that were no better than the National Enquirer. "Why did your pager not work?" "Were you drinking? I heard someone say you were drinking?" "Why did you go to the wrong McDonald's?" Basically this director had an agenda to push, and he did. He thought the cops had completely failed. He armchair quarterbacked this event 32 years after everything was said and done using today's knowledge and expectations. "Why did your pager not work?" "It was 1984 technology wasn't as reliable then as it is now." What did you expect him to say?!? He's a police officer not a tele-com engineer. You weren't there the day of the shooting. You do not know what the officers could and could not see. You do not know what the officers knew. You have had 32 years to pick apart what officers did and did not do. They had seconds. Were mistakes made? Most definitely. Could things have been done differently? Maybe so, I wasn't there. Did people learn from this event? Absolutely! Making accusations to the police officers faces that were there is absolutely not your place Mr. Director. I applaud the officers that did speak to you. They showed you far more consideration than you showed them. Far more consideration than you deserved. Mr Director, if this is not your last "documentary" you may wish to make it your last.

This is a "documentary" about the massacre at the San Ysidro McDonald's in 1984. It was a horrific attack at a McDonald's by some crazy guy. This in itself is worthy of a documentary. But the director, Charlie Minn, decides to insert himself in the story and that's why I give it such a low score. It's not JUST that Mr. Minn blames the police, it's his interview techniques and his weird way of focusing the camera on himself. So weird. Minn is trying to play Monday morning quarterback 35 years later and it's embarrassing......for him. This was a horrific massacre that should have been made into a fascinating documentary in the hands of a more skilled and less egotistical director.

The director obviously had an agenda; to put the blame on the police department for this horrific mass murder. I commend the members of law enforcement for their grace and composure while being subjected to the merciless slanted questions put to them by the director of this 'cheap shot' documentary. Shame on the director/producer for his blatant bias and contempt for the police. I refuse to mention his name for the same reason the shooter has remained anonymous; why give him a platform to make himself famous at the expense of others?

The McDonald's Massacre. Thirty-four years ago, it was the worst shooting in American history and forced the producers of "Red Dawn" to remove a shot of a tank rolling up to a McDonald's from the movie. That little piece of trivia is the reason I was aware of this tragedy in the first place, and it's for that reason that I was psyched for a documentary. Hopefully, a good one. But "77 Minutes" does not measure up. The movie was produced with an axe to grind, and filmmaker Charlie Minn leaves no illusions about it. His beef is with the police who failed to take immediate action, and almost every officer interviewed is taken to task. You can understand a person in Minn's position who wants answers for those wronged, but this isn't a quest; he's already made up his mind and now the police have to explain why they screwed up. That's not journalism, and it becomes grating after a while. What Minn does get right however is a refusal to celebrate the killer (I don't think the man's name is even uttered in the film), and instead letting the survivors speak. That's the reason to see this movie. I even appreciate the use of graphic crime scene footage to impress upon our current desensitized state the horrors witnessed that day. Yes, even the gratuitous dead infant shots. It all works to convey the victims' traumas. I found myself on the side of the police in this movie. Not all of them became politicians, and you can tell that they're sincere in their appraisals of the operation carried out that day; they've clearly wrestled with this for years. And I liked hearing from them. But it's as if Minn lets off the killer as an anomalous crazy and instead demands to know why the police were the bad guys in taking so long to take him down. And that is abhorrent. 4/10

I have a tremendous tolerance for extreme cinema. Whatever the most f'd up movie you can think of, I can top it. Guaranteed. That said, Charlie Minn is not a filmmaker, nor a journalist. He is like many people living here in LA -- cold, unfeeling, money-obsessed, and most of all, self-indulgent. First movie I've ever turned off in disgust. This man uses human suffering as a platform for his enormous ego. He is THE ONLY MAN ON EARTH I can honestly say this about..... stop making movies. You are a disgrace. The end.