Chronicling the true story of Randall Dale Adams, an ordinary innocent man, who has been falsely accused of murdering a police man in Dallas, after his car went broken in the road, leaving him alone in the road, so he receives help from a young teenager guy who stole a motorbike, the thing that brings terrible for Randall.
The Thin Blue Line is one of the films that helped make documentaries a viable entertainment option for arthouse moviegoers during the indie-film boom of the 1980s and '90s.
Furthering its genre irregularity, it employs no narration to guide the viewer, and each shot is carefully static and composed. Its central scene, even, is a fabricated element in what is largely a non-fiction film.
Morris was working in a dangerous middle ground between the traditional documentary and the fictional feature film, and his merging of various techniques paid off in a film of singular uniqueness in both its aesthetic approach and its real-world impact.
Accomplished but detached; you're pulled in, but you couldn't be blamed for resisting.
EmanuelLevy.Com
December 22, 2006
Arguably no other film of the 1980s, fiction or non-fiction, was as significant in blurring the boundaries between what's reel and real and in demonstrating the remarkable impact a movie could have.
