Robert J. Maxwell Nick Broomfield, I gather, is a well-known figure in documentary films, and he IS a little different from what you'd expect. He wanders in and out of the frame carrying the microphone and wearing earphones. He looks like a normal, middle-aged Englishman, moves deliberately, and sounds a little like Donald Crisp might have sounded as he approached adolescence. His voice is calm, dispassionate, and lacks drama. On the whole he sounds like a philosophy professor at some British boarding school, maybe Sidcot. "Next we met Bertrand Russell. Bert is a white-haired socialist. He once drove a garbage truck but is now homeless. Bert, how well did you know Alfred North Whitehead?" In point of fact, we don't really get to know much about the suspected murderer, Lonnie Franklin. Broomfield has the invaluable help of a key informant, Pam, who takes him on a tour of South Central Los Angeles and calls pedestrians over for a few words about the Grim Sleeper. Without Pam Bromfield probably wouldn't have got as far as he did, since he's white. According to the anecdotes we get from the people on the street, Lonnie Franklin seems to have been one of those fellows who goes out of his way to help other people, although his friends do mention a few peculiarities -- a pile of stroke magazines in the bathroom, a proudly displayed .25 caliber pistol.If we don't learn much about Franklin, we certainly get a good gander at the neighborhood and its residents. First of all, despite the bars on the windows and the gun shots in the background, it doesn't look nearly as squalid as the black ghetto near where I grew up, in Newark, New Jersey. Anybody moving from Chancellor Avenue to broad sunny Central Avenue in LA would take a deep breath and relax, the way retirees do when they finally step off the bus in Florida.The police weren't involved in the film, so we get the African-American perspective on events. Generally, the attitudinal set is that the LAPD is incompetent and neglectful of black crime victims. There are exceptions but it's clear that there is a great big wall between the black neighborhood and the police force, as in so many other cities.Broomfield doesn't show much in the way of political correctness. His informants speak for themselves. As an anthropologist, which is what I am, I would be very careful in taking some of their statements as literal fact.One of the more admirable features of the film is that Broomfield, despite his narrative voice-over and his occasional intrusion into the images, is no Michael Moore. He's not one of the so-called Nouvelles Egotistes.I regret to say that on the whole it was a little repetitious and dull. Too many anecdotes from a handful of acquaintances and relatives about what Franklin might or might not have done. It could have been pruned down to a fascinating one-hour show.

punishmentpark A scary, intriguing look into the life of a(n alleged, since he is yet to be convicted) serial killer through the statements of people who knew him first hand. And that look expands to the neighborhood of South Central, Los Angeles, which almost looks like a third world country place. Very likely, hundreds of women, girls, have been abducted, tortured and killed by this Lonnie David Franklin. Considering the vast amount of evidence that was present very early on, this man could have and should have been taken off the streets pretty much straight away.But Franklin was a man of (relative) stature, and to the L.A.P.D. most black lives appear to be not worth so much. The victims were mostly hookers addicted to crack, so he was even praised by them for 'cleaning the streets', if we may believe his son Chris. The picture that the women (prostitutes who knew Franklin, but also mothers of victims) paint throughout the documentary leaves hardly a shred of hope for the citizens of South Central. It is a community in which people seem to look out only for themselves, and in which drugs, violence and gangs get the better of many, and women like Margaret Prescod are admirable, yet rare voices for justice.This is a grim tale, which is not over, and for the people of South Central, things are looking bleak as ever. The only positive outcome is that the Lonnie David Franklin is off the streets of L.A. forever - I at least want to assume that he will be convicted.9 out of 10.

Phil Hibberd It's not bad - it shows that LAPD are incompetent, and that in South Central life is very cheap indeed. Usual Broomfield faux-incompetence. Can't quite prove the allegation that LAPD were complicit rather than incompetent in the non-arrest of a prodigious serial killer.The impressive thing is the interviews, which Broomfield plays down. He can have people who were hurling insults at him tearfully recollecting, or admitting their own complicity as they realise they cleaned bloodstains or found victims.I'm surprised some local tough guy didn't take him out, there seems to be a strange reliance on the police, who no-one remotely trusts for anything else, to solve the problem of a serial killer in the neighbourhood - looks like local people who weren't related to the victims didn't care any more than the LAPD.

R Bruce Hudson This documentary is about Lonnie Franklin who killed 10 women over the course of 25 years in South Central LA.The documentary served as an attack on the LAPD's inability to do the right thing, to investigate and release warnings to the public.It is also a testament to Nick Broomfield's persistence, as an outsider sporting a big microphone and a funny accent he was able to wear down and break communication barriers, witnessed by the evolving stories of those interviewed. Once inside a subculture within the gnarly South Central LA district, he reveals a full spectrum voices that speak the message of outrage from victim's loved ones and their supporters, to witnesses of sexual deviancy in the form of Franklin's friends.