13th

13th, available in theaters and on Netflix, is one for the cinema time capsule, a record of shame so powerful that it just might change things. Godspeed.

That’s a lot of ground to cover, and the film can be as exhausting, in its flood of information, as it is exhaustive. But DuVernay keeps it all chugging and churning along, propelled by the force of her montage and the sheer volume of damning, gripping material.

It’s a film that hits hard, but it also nails its targets with precision.

The sturdiest ingredient in 13TH is the testimony from people who clearly know what they’re talking about.

What comes across loud and clear is that 13TH is a serious, timely, important work with highways and byways of thought that are worth traveling for anyone who cares to understand why, as DuVernay argues, slavery didn’t end with slavery.

Few films shake and astonish like this one, even though nothing in it should be a surprise.

In the main 13th makes connections that haven’t been made in a mainstream documentary before.

Watching this movie should be a duty for Americans. White Americans need to see how the country has persecuted black people for political, financial, and psychological reasons.

13th blurs the line between an advocacy film presenting a specific perspective that goes unchallenged, and an honest historical account of the transition to mass incarceration in the United States. Personally, I was hoping for a strictly historical account, but when push comes to shove, the documentary clearly chooses to be an advocacy film that runs loose with the facts. Allow me to give you one very specific example. At 33 minutes into the film, the documentary is discussing how George Bush used crime and **** to appeal to white voters. At 33:29, he states, "Never mind the fact that the history of interracial **** in this country. That record is far more marked by white **** against black women than of black men against white women." The documentary then cuts to the **** scene from the film 12 Years a Slave.... Not a presentation of crime statistics from that year...a **** scene from a film about slavery. The assertion that interracial **** is disproportionately white men **** black women is simply not backed in any way by the FBI's Uniform Crime Report which is available free to anyone who can be bothered to Google: Interracial **** statistics + FBI. Is denying the existence of racial disparities in violent the best way to tackle violent crime? I have my doubts, but it appears many critics don't. You very well may still enjoy the film, but make sure you're prepared for an advocacy film rather than a historical documentary.

Lacks facts and data, Bryan Stevenson seems to be the only reasonable person on the panel who doesn't try to push an agenda. Incarceration numbers went up yes, but they didn't explain the economic or social factors that contributed to it. Smears Clinton, whom I strongly dislike, for trying to make communities safer.Three strike law has ruined many live sure, but why play into their hands and get to that point?

I gave this 2 stars because the valuable message about the woefully inadequate and unfair prison system in this country is so clouded by the bias and propaganda against conservatives, and the current Republican candidate for president in particular, that it’s laughable. Anyone who is truly interested in prison reform, and therefore justice and fairness for people of color in that regard, would know enough to present the case in a way that did not include a clearly contrived and dishonest sequence of images meant to offend and divide, rather than appeal to the innate sense of fairness in people, regardless of political affiliation. Shame on the producers for squandering an opportunity to do some good.

Not convinced in the one sided argument until I hear the other side. To bad this was done as an advocacy film and not a documentary. I am sick of the victimization card being played by to many Americans. Media like this gives the targeted group excuse to keep playing that victim card. Politicians, media and academic elites fall right in line with the propoganda.