Watch Valentine Road For Free

How sad is this?

Highly Overrated But Still Good

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It's obvious that the makers of this documentary wanted to paint a certain picture while making this movie. Small, fragile gay boy got shot at school by a classmate simply because he was gay. Makes you wanna pull out the tissues right now, eh? Look, not saying it's not sad, the whole story IS sad. However, the filmmakers could have relied on actual facts while presenting this story other than going off on the "hate crime" rant. Brandon didn't shoot Larry because he was gay. Brandon (who had just turned 14 at the time) shot Larry (age 15) because Larry was sexually harassing him....sexually harassing a 14 yr old boy who was in JR HIGH.....sexually harassing him in front of his guy friends....spreading rumors that him and Brandon were dating secretly. NO, I do NOT think Larry should have died, that Brandon was in the right to kill him. What I am saying is that the film only wants to focus on the subject of being gay and tries to push the idea that Brandon shot Larry just because the kid was gay. It's more complex than that. Ever notice how the filmmakers never use any pics of Larry dressed as a girl? They only show pics of him as a very young child and not the 15 yr old boy he was at the time he was shot. Why is that?? It's because if the viewers only see photos of Larry as a very young child then it makes them automatically think Brandon shot that sweet little seven year old face. I google searched for pics, there are pics out there of Larry dressed as a girl....looking much older than the younger pics the filmmakers used. This is one red flag that tells you what the filmmakers' agenda is.One 14 yr old troubled boy from an abusive home shot and killed a troubled 15 yr old boy from an abusive home. Sad. I blame the school.....if there was a strict uniform dress code then it should have been fully enforced. My understanding is that the teacher who whined about being fired was actually fired because she broke protocol when she gave Larry the dress. Yeah, sure it was just a dress....a harmless dress....but this is a teacher who has the responsibility of following the rules and enforcing the IEP put in place by the school....she shouldn't have given him the dress (not on school grounds anyway), the school should have done more about the situation, and Brandon should not have resorted to violence. Larry is gone, Brandon's life is ruined. It's sad.

It might look like Producer/Director Marta Cunningham might have tried to create an even handed film about Lawrence King and his killer, Brandon McInerney, but alas...her bias shows. For one thing, Cunningham tries way too hard to convince the viewer that Brandon killed Lawrence because of ties to neo-Nazis. And in order to do this, she intentionally leaves out something vital, which explains just exactly why Brandon's jury was deadlocked and members ultimately came to support him.Joy Epstein, a lesbian, and the Assistant Principal not only supported and encouraged Lawrence, she also gave him a gift card so he could buy girls' shoes that he wore on campus (perhaps the very ones mentioned in the film). But she also issued a memo to the faculty that Lawrence was not to be bothered by them for his behavior. This directly led to him parading himself in front of groups of boys, following them to the boys' restroom, and taunting them with such things as saying, "You know you want me."So in the film, you are led to believe Brandon was the sole target of Lawrence's behavior. But the above, reported during trial coverage by Los Angeles Times, shows otherwise. Now you know the rest of the story.There is also the talk of "tolerance" and the use of Mackelmore and Ryan Lewis's "Same Love," so you know where Cunningham is going with this.Shameful. Just stick with the facts, ma'am, no matter how much it hurts.

Reviewing a documentary like this one becomes as much a review of the actual event as a commentary on the cinematic production. And since thoughts about this actual event are fraught with emotions on either side, or on many sides, the reviews I skimmed through seemed inclined to see this presentation of the events as being biased against whoever the reviewer felt was the "real" victim.I'm gay and personally experienced the bullying & name calling from classmates (and lack of support from any adults who might be expected to provide guidance to young people) while I was in school in suburban Chicago many, many years ago. I would, therefore, be inclined to see Larry as the victim and Brandon as the bad guy, at least before getting into the facts of the case.I think the documentary has done a laudable job showing that both children … and they were 14 and 15 year old children at the time … were victims of both parental & societal neglect, abandonment, abuse and mind boggling stupidity. Both lost their lives from preventable and curable problems. Larry quite literally was denied the opportunity to ever find out if "It Gets Better" and Brandon doesn't fare a whole lot better although he continues to live.I applaud the emphasis that the documentary puts on the adults involved. It may take a village to raise a child, but the cabal of idiots involved in this case demonstrates the damage a "village" of adults can cause in the pathetic attempt to raise its children. The homophobic, bitter 7th grade teacher is as bad as the foolish 8th grade teacher who gave Larry a second–hand dress and treated him like a Barbie doll. Equally to blame were the school officials who were more interested in toeing the legal line than serving the interest of their students … including Larry and Brandon before the crisis and all the other children following the event.The parents of the two boys and others who were meant to care for them were, for the most part, sadly inadequate. Apparently the care facility in which Larry ended up was a good place, but otherwise these two kids were left to deal with their own circumstances as well as with the drug addled failings of the adults in their lives, with no help. The prosecuting attorney seemed fairly level headed, although I don't really understand why Brandon was not allowed to be tried as a child. Possibly his outward appearance seemed more adult than his fragile personality would suggest. The defense attorneys seemed reasonable in their desire to have Brandon not tried as an adult, but the woman attorney who, at the end, kept announcing she loved Brandon and started crying, was acting in an irrational, far too emotional manner. Her interest in Brandon seemed anything but professional.Certainly some of the jurors were totally incapable of making a valid judgment. Since there was no question about what Brandon had done, the only decision that needed to be made was what to do with him following the murder. Society had failed to protect him (or Larry) and now some inadequate representatives of that failed society were expected to decide what should happen next. If it weren't so sad, it would be funny. Had Brandon been raised in a reasonably normal family situation and developed into a self-assured, confident, loved young man, when Larry approached him while he was playing basketball with friends, Brandon could easily have laughed it off or even hugged Larry and turned it into a joke. But he saw it as one more attack on his personal dignity and from someone far less intimidating than his father. Neither of these two children should have been made to feel so hated, to have developed such self-loathing and to have been abandoned to deal with life on their own. Based on the letter that Brandon sent to the one teacher, maybe incarceration provided some protection for him and allowed him to develop into a more self-assured, sensible individual. It would be easy to argue that incarceration for 21 years was too little or too much. Was it meant to be punishment or as an attempt to provide a remedial environment? It did save him from further abuse from his father (who died soon after the incident anyway) and the self-absorbed drug addicted mother, but that should have happened before he murdered Larry.I think the documentary was quite well done. I know some people with limited attention spans may have found it slow moving at times, but that may have been appropriate since neither of these marginal children ever generated much in the way of speedy action from the local community and that lethargy & indifference extended even to the collateral damage inflicted on the other children in this story.

Last year we had the powerful documentary Bully from Lee Hirsch, which looked at the insidious issue of bullying in American high schools and its impact. While it took a broad perspective on the complex issue, this new documentary from first time filmmaker Marta Cunningham takes a narrower focus, but is just as disturbing and revealing. In 2008 in the small Californian coastal town of Oxnard, 14-year old student Brandon McInerney shot and killed a fellow student Larry King. The effeminate King had been experimenting with his sexuality and was often teased by his fellow students. But when he made a Valentine's joke at McInerney's expense, the boy brought a gun to school and shot him. McInerney is serving a 21 year sentence for the crime, but the film depicts him as much of victim of society as he is a killer by exploring his background and his dysfunctional upbringing. Valentine Road is a character study of the two boys - the killer and his victim - and it explores their backgrounds and gives us insight into their troubled lives, finding some surprising common ground. The film also touches upon some serious issues, such as the flawed American legal system, its out of control gun culture, bigotry and intolerance, racism, its unforgiving attitude towards homosexuality, and even dysfunctional families. Cunningham has gone into a community still divided and bearing the scars of the horrible events for this moving account of a an American tragedy. She tries to remain balanced and non-judgmental in her approach, but it is obvious where her sympathies lie. She is compassionate and understanding, and has gained the trust of the community who open up about the tragedy. There is plenty of archival footage and news reports, as well as candid interviews with family, friends, teachers, lawyers and the police themselves which are very revealing. This is a complex issue and a powerful documentary that raises some disturbing questions.