The Thin Blue Line (1988)
American Playhouse, Channel 4

Description

On November 28, 1976, when drifter Randall Dale Adams was picked up by teenage runaway David Harris, his fate was sealed. That night, a police officer was shot in cold blood. And though all the facts pointed to Harris, a sociopath with a lengthy rap sheet, Adams was convicted of capital murder. Was Adams guilty? And if not, can Morris unlock the secrets of this baffling case?

Tags

Court cases

Collected reviews and ratings

10 documentaryfilms.net | Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr.

The Thin Blue Line proves more profound than a more self-consciously political film might have. This non-fiction film reveals injustice, but doesn’t seem too surprised by it.
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10 Washington Post | Desson Howe

Errol Morris's "The Thin Blue Line" is more like a waking nightmare than a docudrama. A true story of murder and justice evidently miscarried, wrapped in the fictional haze of a surrealistic whodunit, it will leave you in a trance for days.
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10 Variety

Errol Morris' The Thin Blue Line constitutes a mesmerizing reconstruction and investigation of a senseless murder.
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10 DVD Outsider

There are no two ways about it, The Thin Blue Line is simply one of the finest documentaries ever to grace the cinema screen.
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10 Old School Reviews | John Nesbit

The Thin Blue Line sent shivers through my spine and left my mouth agape at the incompetence and corruption of the criminal justice system.
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10 digitallyobsessed.com | Nate Meyers

Errol Morris' best work, The Thin Blue Line is a searing documentary that has the power to enrich one's appreciation of life.
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9.0 Amazon user reviews

Morris's innovative use of repeated dramatization, multiple points of view, talking-head and phone interviews, and symbolism--in concert with Philip Glass's haunting music--establishes that a combination of communitarian zeal and overly eager testimony persuaded the jury to find Adams, a "drifter" from the Midwest, guilty of the crime, instead of his underage (and, for the death penalty, ineligible) acquaintance, David Harris, who had a criminal record.
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9.0 New York Times | Janet Maslin

Mr. Morris's film is both an investigation of the murder and a nightmarish meditation on the difference between truth and fiction, an alarming glimpse at the many distortions that have shaped Mr. Adams's destiny.
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8.8 Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

Although he makes documentaries, Morris is much more interested in the spaces between the facts than with the facts themselves. He is fascinated by strange people, by odd word choices and manners of speech, by the way that certain symbols or beliefs can become fetishes with the power to rule human lives.
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8.3 Time Out | GA

The film provokes sadness, anger, relief, admiration, and wonder; enjoy it, and worry.
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