They Call Us Monsters

This is a movie woven togeth­er from ques­tions for which there are no answers. The sub­jects at its cen­tre, all under­age felons being tried as adults for acts of thiev­ery and vio­lence, are chil­dren in their joy and spir­it, yet they seem at home with unfor­giv­able actions in ways only mon­sters could be.

The movie asks three sim­ple ques­tions: 1) Which of the two are they; 2) To what end are they aware of the grav­i­ty of their crimes; 3) Does any of that mat­ter? We leave the cin­e­ma torn apart for empathis­ing with their youth even as we study the scar tis­sue they’ve left on inno­cent lives.

The Com­pound is a jail-with­in-a-jail, specif­i­cal­ly designed to hold minors. Some of these inmates are too young to dri­ve, yet many of them have already had chil­dren, dealt and been addict­ed to nar­cotics, and in some cas­es, even tak­en human life. We nav­i­gate this world through a screen­writ­ing pro­gramme that allows three inmates to chan­nel the emo­tions of their cir­cum­stances into a movie.

Screen­writer Gabe Cow­an held week­ly ses­sions with these inmates to gain a glimpse into their minds. Jarad, arrest­ed at 16, faces 200 years for four attempt­ed mur­ders, one of which left a woman paral­ysed and wheel­chair-bound; Juan, also arrest­ed at 16, is serv­ing 90 years to life for first-degree mur­der; and Anto­nio, arrest­ed one month before his 14^th birth­day, faces 90 years to life on two attempt­ed mur­der charges. Each of these young men dis­plays supreme intel­li­gence, sober­ing humil­i­ty and preter­nat­ur­al self-aware­ness, yet they’ve frus­trat­ing­ly turned their virtues into instru­ments of mayhem.

It’s tempt­ing to see these boys as being too young to ful­ly grap­ple with the con­se­quences of their actions, yet they show no naiveté in dis­cussing them­selves and their crimes. Rather than assign­ing blame, it’s eas­i­er to explain them away as prod­ucts of their envi­ron­ments. All three grew up breath­ing in an atmos­phere of impov­er­ish­ment, liv­ing where there isn’t much to do but go to school or join a gang and sell drugs.

It might be a stretch to call them vic­tims, but the film argues that they were born into and ulti­mate­ly bro­ken by a vicious cycle that long pre­ced­ed them. If some­one is nur­tured in an envi­ron­ment in which vio­lence is not mere­ly accept­able but tri­umphed, are they entire­ly to blame for their fol­lies? When Anto­nio very clear­ly express­es no remorse for his crimes, we sus­pect we’ve got our answer, even if it betrays our own feel­ings about human nature.

They Call Us Mon­sters rais­es some thought-pro­vok­ing ques­tions which are real and con­flict­ing in iso­la­tion, but at a lit­tle or 80 min­utes the movie as a whole feels like some­thing of a missed oppor­tu­ni­ty. While it’s fas­ci­nat­ing to see these young offend­ers open up via an inge­nious script, it would have been even more so to wit­ness their reac­tions to the fin­ished cut. Imag­ine the qui­et, vital rev­e­la­tions and added cathar­sis that might have been deliv­ered by that scenario.

As it is, we’re left with a film that plays like the absorb­ing first half of a meati­er, more pen­e­trat­ing explo­ration of these peo­ple and their fol­lies. It con­tains a few unex­pect­ed turns, and it’s engag­ing from begin­ning to end, but in the end, we’re left with the crush­ing sense of sto­ry that had only just start­ed pick­ing up speed. These young men are as hon­est as they are hope­less­ly lost, and it would have been inter­est­ing to see a film that was brave enough to get lost with them.