Sin City Law (2007)
Arte, Maha Productions

Description

Sin City Law opens a window onto a world that is only steps away from the famous strip, but rarely glimpsed from inside the casinos and mega-hotels populated by tourists: a world of drugs, gangs, depleted gamblers, and wayward club owners where what happens in Vegas stays deep inside the criminal justice system. The series travels with the public defenders' and district attorney's offices to track four separate criminal cases.

Sin City Law captures the unfolding emotion and suspense of a criminal proceeding as it occurs, moving from strategy sessions to witness interviews; from jailhouse meetings to courtroom proceedings. In the process, the series offers a fascinating portrait of crime and punishment in Las Vegas, the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. The past two decades have seen this desert town reinvent itself as a plush vacation oasis offering adult hedonism alongside family-friendly entertainment. That transformation has fueled a population boom that has made Las Vegas one of America's fastest-growing cities. Las Vegas is now ranked among the top 30 most populous American cities, and crime statistics have come to resemble those of older metropolitan areas.

Tags

2000s, Las Vegas, Court cases, Legal

Collected reviews and ratings

9.0 New York Times | Ned Martel

[Each episode] chronicles a grisly homicide complicated by the lawless, lurid abandon for which the city is known [...] “Sin City Law” is a breakthrough for these filmmakers in that they also gain entry to prosecutorial ranks, giving viewers extra insight into courtroom proceedings.
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9.0 St. Petersburg Times

It's all real, often too real, and sometimes surreal. And it's another triumph for producers Denis Poncet and Jean-Xavier De Lestrade [...] Unlike the typical TV crime show, the true-life crime dramas aren't neatly wrapped up - everything is messy, from the crimes to the conclusions.
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8.0 LA Weekly | Robert Abele

... an effortlessly propulsive narrative of jail powwows, phone-call negotiations, strategy sessions, office chitchat and courtroom dread that reminds us that behind every tabloid story is a chance for the system to prove exactly how it works.
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8.0 Variety | Stuart Levine

An intimate look at attorneys on both sides of the justice system isn't anything new, but in the hands of Oscar-winning documentarians Denis Poncet and Jean-Xavier De Lestrade, "Sin City Law" feels like a fresh take on those lawyers who represent criminals that dwell on the bottom of the food chain.
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