There are time when, in lieu of actually participating in a world that has seemingly gone mad, you find that it would be easier to crawl back into bed with a bottle scotch and wait out the rest of your life. I feel this way every time I read in the paper the most recent story about a school shooting or the headline that reads “PRIEST KILLS NINE; STILL GIVES COMMUNION.” What is it about these last few decades that has made everyone on the planet snap, turning those who aren’t actually physically committing the crimes into salacious vultures who hover over the rotting corpses of the latest sensational trial? Things have gotten so bad so fast that now, all anyone has to do is make an accusation about a random person and suddenly, that person is guilty. Look at Gary Condit. Now, there’s no questioning the fact that Condit is one of the bad guys. He carried on an affair with a much younger intern and when she dropped from the planet, he lied about it. He tells the media, in so many words, that it’s his life and he shouldn’t be bothered nor have his privacy disturbed. Condit is a sleazy, malicious, moral-free bastard and for that, he should be run out of Washington by a mob carrying pitchforks and torches. But did he kill Chandra Levy? Most of America has pretty much decided that, yes, he did and furthermore, he probably killed Nicole Brown, held the door for the Manson family and tampered with the wiring that blew up the Challenger.
Now, to be fair, I think he did it too. It’s just a little too circumspect for my tastes, but that’s not the point. The point is, we as Americans are a lot more prone to making these kinds of assumptions than we used to be, excluding the Salem witch trails. And the McCarthey Red Scare. Okay, so maybe thoughtful contemplation of all the presented evidence has never been our nation's strong suit. We do make a high quality cheeseburger, so at least we have that going for us. Anyway, it’s this mentality that is so aptly profiled in this week’s movie, INDICTMENT: THE MCMARTIN TRIAL. Before I go any further, I issue a warning to all of my readers that might be a tad squeamish about controversial subject matter. This is movie is filled to the brim with the stuff and, as the cherry on top, it’s all based squarely in reality. INDICTMENT is unpleasant to the extreme, but not in the way, say, THE STORY OF RIKKI is unpleasant. No, there isn’t any forced disemboweling here. All of the nastiness and evil in this film is of the “Man’s inhumanity to man” variety which I feel can be just as bad.
