Behind the walls of the Compound, LA’s most violent juvenile offenders await their trials. To their advocates, they’re kids. To the system, they’re adults. To their victims, they’re monsters. Who are they to you?
Yes, this film is important for its insistence that we see these boys as capable of rehabilitation in the right environment. But it’s the movie’s daring structure and humanity that make it worthy of the Lear name.
There is no simple answer to the questions this film poses, but it makes us think about the complexities of an issue that has been muddied by tough-on-crime politicians.
They Call Us Monsters doesn’t shy from the consequences of the violence the prisoners were accused of (we meet a paralyzed victim of a shooting), even as it suggests that the system...proceeds almost mechanically.