Watch Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer For Free

As Good As It Gets

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Looking at the life of Aileen through this documentary, you can easily tell Aileen has been through a lot to get to how crazy she is. According to her adopted mom, Aileen was homeless at a young age of 13. She would sleep alone in the forest, even in the blistering winter. Desperate and willing, Aileen became a hitchhiking prostitute traveling the country everyday. From 1989-1990 seven men were murdered by the hands of Aileen Wuornos. When Aileen was brought into custody, she confessed to the murders, but claimed they were in self defense. Her fair trail lasted 12 years, coming to an end in 2002 when she was executed by Florida Officials. It was quite sad to see Aileen early in the trials persuading juror's and judges by crying and lying under oath about how she was raped and tortured severely. Then later down the trial towards her end days there is footage of her admitting she was lying the entire time and that she was in the prostitute business to rob men and kill them. Aileen in her end days compared to her in the beginning of the trial is two different people. She became very paranoid and went mad, she was executed October 9th, 2002, at the age of 46.

Like the great Rolling Stones song in my title, this sobering film forces us to question what is evil, and what is humankind's role in creating it?Like many of you, I'm assuming, I became interested in the story of Aileen Wurnos after seeing the powerful film "Monster" with Charlize Theron (who, by the way, did an EXCELLENT job in that film. After you see this, you'll agree she totally nailed the part of the real Aileen we see here).From the opening lines, we realize that the director Nick Broomfield is biased in favour of Aileen, so if that's hard for you to swallow you might want to skip this documentary. But whether or not you think Aileen deserved to be executed, this is a great doc because it asks questions that we all should consider about the legal system, society's callousness and ultimately the death penalty.From the Rolling Stones song: "I shouted out, who killed the Kennedys? When after all, It was you and me."Similarly, this film asks the question, who killed the 7 victims? The answer, Nick Bloomfield implies, is "you and me" (human society). There is no Devil, and Aileen Wurnos isn't some supernatural spawn of Satan. She was a mentally damaged person who slipped through the cracks of society and in turn destroyed a lot of lives. Society, or rather the justice system, labeled her an abomination and exacted its revenge, washed its hands of her, and all the while made a pretty profit.What's masterful about this documentary is, even though it is very sympathetic toward Aileen in her plight, it never attempts to excuse her for her crimes. In fact it shows some very chilling outbursts of hers where we realize exactly how explosive & mentally damaged she was. This is truly a documentary for people who can process the truth in conflicting packets, not for people who see things as black & white.Other great films/documentaries that tackle controversial topics and force us to see the complexities beneath them include: "You Don't Know Jack" (2010) about Dr. Jack Kevorkian's suicide machine, "A Short Film About Killing" (1988) which is part of Kieslowsky's powerful "Decalogue" series, and an excellent doc called "The Bridge" (2006) that shows real footage of several troubled souls leaping to their deaths off the Golden Gate Bridge and analyzes what made them do it.

Nick Broomfield, a reflexive filmmaker, using a minimum crew, grabs the title's famed personality and important political context in this film, which was to be the peak of his observations on the filmmaker as accomplice and his original documentary on Aileen Wuornos is introduced as evidence during a new trial depicted in this one, he himself called as a witness. Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer comes to stand, very alarmingly, as the final wailings from a woman struggling to battle her own commodification. Not even Charlize Theron's striking portrayal of the accused can rival the entrancing real thing, whose premeditated admissions of regret hardly mask her cancerous rage at a life span of abuse, oppression, exploitation and neglect.A poignant examination of a destroyed and atrophied life and an inarguable denunciation of the death penalty and its supporters, this film is a major paradigm shift. After over a decade on death row, Wuornos, who persistently claimed self-defense from rape by her seven victims, upturned her initial testimony, saying that she committed the murders and wanted to atone with God. Broomfield's camera, at one point, keeps rolling unbeknownst to Wuornos, and she comes clean to the documentarian that she could not carry on her death row vigil and just wants it all to be over. Jeb Bush signed the execution order to grant her wish, claiming it the moral and correct thing to do.Broomfield and his collaborator Joan Churchill, using Wuornos' past as a background, cement a dissertation that negates the pro-death penalty case made by its advocates, most significantly Jeb Bush who wants Florida to be more like Texas when it comes to killing convicts. The documentarians grill this negligence for human life and cite the 100 or more cases where a death row inmate was released as innocent. This should be enough to abolish the barbarity. Link this affirmation with the barefaced, obvious and palpable proof of Aileen's unstable state of mind.Again, the power of the film comes from its merging of the angry political framework with its unspeakable personal strife. Broomfield resolutely uses his camera to show the aggrieved, bewildered mental state of his subject. He pins down her history, supplying abundant verification for her present state. The media spectacle that envelops death row as Aileen's execution approaches exposes the freak show that cultivated this unfortunate woman. After Aileen's death is broadcast, the statement made to the press details her last words, incoherence about Jesus and spaceships.To most people, the proof of the senses is generally reliable. We say seeing's believing. If someone asks, "How do you know someone's in the bathroom?" it's sufficient to say, "Because I saw and heard them." Consistent with the conventions of day-to-day life, an assertion's verified if we can refer to some sense encounter as proof of it. But the senses are vulnerable, exposed. Even a more internally unfailing practice may not match with any truth. Historical fact and deduction may all be coherent, but maybe things didn't occur that way. You could even say science and mathematics, while making purely logical sense, may not illustrate truth at all. How many detective stories involve evidence clearly pointing to a character who turns out to be innocent after all? Vice versa? Perhaps the most telling moment of the film is when Broomfield has to pretend the camera is off for Aileen to say something, something very distressing that may or may not be the truth, but to her, it's gospel.

After watching this movie, one can only wonder how Hollywood had the gall to make the "Monster" movie. It's clear from this - and Nick's previous docu on Aileen - that Hollywood's only concern was to make money out of Aileen's misery. Negotiating with the police officials involved in the case and with her former lover for the inside story before judgment had even been passed. Shame on Hollywood. Shame on law enforcement. And shame on her ex. A sickening and a sad reflection on society in general.Aileen was mad. Mad as a hatter if her performance in this docu is to be believed - and I have no reason to doubt its authenticity. Clearly, she should have been locked up - not murdered. And if life imprisonment actually meant "life" then the pro-capital punishment lobby would not have a leg to stand on. But it doesn't. And so they do.There were times when Aileen came across as likable. Genuinely likable. And one could fully understand why the film maker felt a rapport with his subject. When she was lucid she made sense. She knew she had been stitched up by the media. The validity of her argument must be obvious to anyone with a brain.Not everyone who is abused becomes a serial killer. In fact virtually NOBODY who is does. Contributing factor, Yes. Justification, No. Indeed, there is no justification in the final analysis. She killed people.No justification for "Monster" either. I for one will NOT be watching it.