The Brandon Teena Story

Rating:
Summary: Nothing is as good as the true story
Review: Although I enjoyed the documentary, I thought there could have been more details to explore than to simply turn the camera on and let the subjects talk. And there are so many "urban myths" attached to this story -- i.e. the name "Brandon Teena" was never used, only "Brandon."
The film makers had chances to explore, push buttons, and probe, but evidently chose not to do so. Lana obviously considers herself a star to the show but is never pursued as a suspect; the rumour of her being present at the time of the killings could have been explored. Both of the killer's sexualities could have been explored, showing there are no easy answers and no 'simple' crimes. Why did Teena B trust these three low life, white trash losers (Lana & the killers)? What common bond kept them together, even in the midst of a heinous crime? Interesting how much Lana played into the story, yet not once did she show emotion when discussing the crime - except to laugh.
The additions to the DVD seem slapped on - and again, could have been so much better. Documentaries can educate and explain, or open an issue to discussion.
I truly believe, as a criminologist and as a gay activist, all of the persons responsible for the 3 murders were not held accountable. They caught the "bad guys" and locked them up, end of story. But there seems to be so much more than this. Lana & her mother should have been interrogated for aiding the killers (Lana's mother admits to doing so in her explanation to hide the evidence). Lana's role in the killing should have been explored. These are not bright, clever people; they could have been "had" with the right interview by law enforcement.
All in all, kudos to the filmmakers for their work, but consider that nothing is as good as the TRUE story.

Rating:
Summary: boys don't cry
Review: Before viewing 'boys don't cry' I was unaware of the viciousnous of the Brandon Teena murder. The film touched me deeply and I recommend to anyone to see it.

Rating:
Summary: Ignorance and prejudice lead to murder
Review: Even though I knew the story after seeing the movie "Boys Don't Cry", I am glad I saw this video. The facts of the case, especially the actual words that the sheriff used to interrogate Brandon after the rape, were absolutely appalling and display the ignorance and prejudice of the people in the small town of 5000, known for its dead-end jobs and domestic violence.

Now that I've seen both versions of this story, I must say I preferred Boys Don't Cry with its scripted performance and planned dramatic tension. It also was able to portray some of the more intimate moments with a sense of humor, such as the scene in which he gets a period and steals tampax from a convenience store. Scenes like this are impossible in a documentary of course.

The strength of the documentary, however, was being able to see the real people, not actors. And real photographs of the troubled Brandon. The realization that this is the truth, not fiction, adds an extra punch or horror to that sickening feeling I felt when I saw the dramatized version.

If the story intrigues you, as it did me as well as the filmmakers, make sure not to miss this penetrating true look at this horrible crime. Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Ignorance and prejudice lead to murder
Review: Even though I knew the story after seeing the movie "Boys Don't Cry", I am glad I saw this video. The facts of the case, especially the actual words that the sheriff used to interrogate Brandon after the rape, were absolutely appalling and display the ignorance and prejudice of the people in the small town of 5000, known for its dead-end jobs and domestic violence.

Now that I've seen both versions of this story, I must say I preferred Boys Don't Cry with its scripted performance and planned dramatic tension. It also was able to portray some of the more intimate moments with a sense of humor, such as the scene in which he gets a period and steals tampax from a convenience store. Scenes like this are impossible in a documentary of course.

The strength of the documentary, however, was being able to see the real people, not actors. And real photographs of the troubled Brandon. The realization that this is the truth, not fiction, adds an extra punch or horror to that sickening feeling I felt when I saw the dramatized version.

If the story intrigues you, as it did me as well as the filmmakers, make sure not to miss this penetrating true look at this horrible crime. Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: interesting
Review: Flushes out the facts presented in BOYS DON'T CRY. Unfortunately, it was shot on cheap video, and looks it. Nonetheless an interesting look at sociopaths: the two murderers, and Teena herself ( forgery is almost a sure sign of sociopathy). Tragic that she got raped and killed, but she was a criminal herself, and this video does not overlook that to the degree the movie does.

Rating:
Summary: devastated!!
Review: I am a Deaf Lesbian and political activist, and so I was especially sorry this video and DVD do not contain closed captioning! Unfortunately, that is a familiar story for me. Especially with small films distributed by small film companies (Tim Roth's directorial debut The War Zone is another I've just discovered isn't CC), which are quite often the pictures I most want to see. Imagine how frustrating it is for me! Aargh!

Rating:
Summary: I would like to thank the previous critic!
Review: I am a Deaf Lesbian and political activist, and so I was especially sorry this video and DVD do not contain closed captioning! Unfortunately, that is a familiar story for me. Especially with small films distributed by small film companies (Tim Roth's directorial debut The War Zone is another I've just discovered isn't CC), which are quite often the pictures I most want to see. Imagine how frustrating it is for me! Aargh!

Rating:
Summary: The tragic life art imitated
Review: I decided to see this video before seeing "Boys Don't Cry", the movie based on the same story. I have concluded that seeing both films is essential for anyone not directly involved in the actual situation to understand what went on. "Boys Don't Cry" took some liberties with the facts involved in the true story, as most artistic works must ultimately do. "The Brandon Tenna Story" focused on the facts leading up to the hate-crime rape and murder--showing John Lotter and Tom Nissen as amoral sociopaths who, even two years after their crimes, see themselves as homegrown heros who saved a friend through sexual assault and who each proclaims his innocence of the subsequent triple (not double) murder that followed. (This video tells of the third victim of the murder--a physically disabled African American man who just happened to be at the murder scene at the time.) Also in this film (and missing from "BDC") are interviews with the mother of Brandon Teena and the parents of the friend who offered him shelter and tried to offer him a refuge from Lotter and Nissen, only to die for her efforts an leave a 9-month-old son an orphan. The actual filmed interviews with the deputy sheriff who let Lotter and Nissen go, even after they as good as confessed their involvement in the rape to him, is perhaps the most puzzling character of all in this video. The excerpts from his interrogations of Brandon after the rape, and subsequently of Nissen and Lotter, indicate that he was far more aggressive and harsh in his questioning of the victim. There is evidence that both Nissen and Lotter were already well-known as violent trouble-makers in the county's law enforcement officers, this deputy included. In his brief appearances in the film, the sheriff of the county where Brandon dies gives a distinct impression of a town in severe financial depression where violence of all sorts is an everyday affair that everyone learns to live with, if they want to live at all. Somehow, a careful analysis of all that information, and a bit more fact gathering, might ultimately explain why, even after the murders, the deputy seems to regard himself as a law enforcement professional who did his job as best he could. At the end of this video, however, he seems to be nearly as culpable in the crimes as Nissen and Lotter themselves. I don't apologize for that impression, since evidently the Nebraska courts are still dealing with that very issue in a lawsuit filed by Brandon's mother.

This video does not portray Brandon in his best light (I definitely refer anyone to "BDC" for that), because it seems to focus more on the basic facts of his too-short life more than on the pain and confusion that must have been his--trying to live as a man when he had been given a body that appeared to be mostly female, and in a part of the world where the people surrounding him were too busy screwing up their own lives to understand his unique set of problems. So Brandon's survival skills came to include lying and occasionally writing bad checks. But even the most hardcore pragmatist would have to say at the end of the film that Brandon's "victims" would recover in short order and get on with their lives. That's a great deal more than can be said for the victims of Nissen and Lotter, who in this documentary seem to be singing, "We're just some good ol' boys, never meaning' no harm" to the world."

Perhaps the most chilling part of viewing this excellent documentary is that knowledge that this savagery took place only seven years ago in America, helped along by people who at least still give lip service to the idea that they were doing the right thing at the time. At the end of the film, one's mind is filled with the usual 20/20 hindsight solutions for the perverted conditions that enabled the slaughter, and a quiet determination to do whatever possible to change those conditions wherever they may still, unfortunately be found.

A powerful film, a definite must-see.

Rating:
Summary: The tragic life art imitated
Review: I decided to see this video before seeing "Boys Don't Cry", the movie based on the same story. I have concluded that seeing both films is essential for anyone not directly involved in the actual situation to understand what went on. "Boys Don't Cry" took some liberties with the facts involved in the true story, as most artistic works must ultimately do. "The Brandon Tenna Story" focused on the facts leading up to the hate-crime rape and murder--showing John Lotter and Tom Nissen as amoral sociopaths who, even two years after their crimes, see themselves as homegrown heros who saved a friend through sexual assault and who each proclaims his innocence of the subsequent triple (not double) murder that followed. (This video tells of the third victim of the murder--a physically disabled African American man who just happened to be at the murder scene at the time.) Also in this film (and missing from "BDC") are interviews with the mother of Brandon Teena and the parents of the friend who offered him shelter and tried to offer him a refuge from Lotter and Nissen, only to die for her efforts an leave a 9-month-old son an orphan. The actual filmed interviews with the deputy sheriff who let Lotter and Nissen go, even after they as good as confessed their involvement in the rape to him, is perhaps the most puzzling character of all in this video. The excerpts from his interrogations of Brandon after the rape, and subsequently of Nissen and Lotter, indicate that he was far more aggressive and harsh in his questioning of the victim. There is evidence that both Nissen and Lotter were already well-known as violent trouble-makers in the county's law enforcement officers, this deputy included. In his brief appearances in the film, the sheriff of the county where Brandon dies gives a distinct impression of a town in severe financial depression where violence of all sorts is an everyday affair that everyone learns to live with, if they want to live at all. Somehow, a careful analysis of all that information, and a bit more fact gathering, might ultimately explain why, even after the murders, the deputy seems to regard himself as a law enforcement professional who did his job as best he could. At the end of this video, however, he seems to be nearly as culpable in the crimes as Nissen and Lotter themselves. I don't apologize for that impression, since evidently the Nebraska courts are still dealing with that very issue in a lawsuit filed by Brandon's mother.

This video does not portray Brandon in his best light (I definitely refer anyone to "BDC" for that), because it seems to focus more on the basic facts of his too-short life more than on the pain and confusion that must have been his--trying to live as a man when he had been given a body that appeared to be mostly female, and in a part of the world where the people surrounding him were too busy screwing up their own lives to understand his unique set of problems. So Brandon's survival skills came to include lying and occasionally writing bad checks. But even the most hardcore pragmatist would have to say at the end of the film that Brandon's "victims" would recover in short order and get on with their lives. That's a great deal more than can be said for the victims of Nissen and Lotter, who in this documentary seem to be singing, "We're just some good ol' boys, never meaning' no harm" to the world."

Perhaps the most chilling part of viewing this excellent documentary is that knowledge that this savagery took place only seven years ago in America, helped along by people who at least still give lip service to the idea that they were doing the right thing at the time. At the end of the film, one's mind is filled with the usual 20/20 hindsight solutions for the perverted conditions that enabled the slaughter, and a quiet determination to do whatever possible to change those conditions wherever they may still, unfortunately be found.

A powerful film, a definite must-see.

Rating:
Summary: A must-see for everyone
Review: i have not yet seen "boys dont cry", and in fact i had gotten the brandon teena story on accident.i ordered it thinking it was BDC, but when i got it i realized it wasnt.i was tempted to send it back and get my money refunded but i changed my mind and opted to watch it. boy am i glad i did.this documentary moved me so much and affected me more than i was expecting it to. i came into this doc thinking it was just some regular old doc, not really expecting to get much out of it. by the end i was in tears.such a tragic incident to happen to a person like teena. the only downside to this was they focused more on the murder than on teena herself.i would of liked to of seen more of who she was...what she was like, etc. i cant wait to see BDC..."the brandon teena story" is a must-see if you saw/plan to see BDC.i am so glad i deicded to keep it :)