Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Who Killed Garrett Phillips?’ on HBO, an Engrossing Examination of Racial Bias in an Unsolved Murder Case

Who Killed Garrett Phillips? is HBO’s third two-part true-crime documentary this month, and a theme emerges: uncertainty. With Garrett Phillips, director Liz Garbus tells the tragic story of a 12-year-old boy’s murder, which culminated in an apparently innocent man going on trial while the real perpetrator’s trail went cold. The previous docs reached similarly ambiguous conclusions — I Love You, Now Die chronicled the trial of a likely mentally ill woman’s involvement in her boyfriend’s suicide, and Behind Closed Doors pored over a case rendered unsolvable by a maelstrom of frenzied media and incompetent investigators. Clearly, justice was not done in these cases.

WHO KILLED GARRETT PHILLIPS?: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: On Oct. 24, 2011, someone strangled young Garrett Phillips in the modest apartment he shared with his mom and brother in Potsdam, a small town in upstate New York. Neighbors heard disconcerting noises, and called 911. Police found him unresponsive. Someone quite likely jumped out the apartment’s second-story window. The boy died in the hospital soon after.

We don’t see a picture of Garrett until this development, 12 minutes into Who Killed Garrett Phillips?. And when we do, it’s heartbreaking.

In the first of a two-part, three-hour documentary, Garbus painstakingly pieces together the story, sometimes minute by minute. She arranges the players on the chessboard: Phillips’ family, police investigating the case, journalists — and Oral “Nick” Hillary, who soon becomes the film’s focal point. Hillary is the ex-boyfriend of Phillips’ mother, Tandy Cyrus, and police swiftly made him the primary suspect, shoving aside all other probable theories. Garbus interviews Hillary extensively, and part one culminates with footage of detectives questioning him, using dubious, manipulative tactics.

Did I mention that Hillary is a black man living in a primarily white town? That police strip-searched him and photographed him nude, which is outside typical protocol? That the racial subtext of the story rapidly comes to the surface — and likely will be explored further in part two?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: This is another exemplary, finely detailed HBO documentary. See also: Paradise Lost, Leaving Neverland and a slew of others — including the aforementioned docs in the current true-crime “trilogy,” all gripping, sad stories illustrating how preconceived bias quickly derails the criminal justice system.

Performance Worth Watching: When John Jones speaks, our BS detectors twitch. He’s Cyrus’ ex, nudged out of her life by Hillary. He’s also a sheriff’s deputy who came to Cyrus’ aid in her time of grief. He holds her hand as police question her, and calls friends on the force for insider info on the case. Curious. It’s hard to tell if he’d look more suspicious if he didn’t agree to be interviewed for the film.

Memorable Dialogue: “We watched Dexter. We’re big fans,” says Phillips’ neighbor Marissa Vogel, recounting what she was doing the night of the boy’s death — and not noticing the irony.

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: The footage of two cops interrogating Hillary is incriminating — for the cops. They question Hillary under false pretenses. They intimidate him. They tell him he can leave at any time, then stand in front of the door, baiting him to use physical force. They go round and round, manipulating everything he says. They clearly want to hang him if he says anything, and hang him if he says nothing — and Hillary understands that.

Anyone with a sliver of empathy will find the scene — which goes on for many, many minutes — frustrating, if not outright enraging. And in spite of the numerous minute details of the case, what we see is a big, clear picture of two white men exercising their authoritative power over one black man. It’s ugly.

Garbus’ work in part one is painstaking and exhaustive. She interviews all principals save for Cyrus, and paints an exhaustive contextual portrait for the crime. Obviously, Hillary isn’t interviewed in jail; part two details the cops’ years-long effort to indict him, as well as the trial that ultimately cleared him of the murder charge. Knowing the outcome doesn’t make this doc any less engrossing — Garbus attempts to clear the fog not to solve the case, but explore its social ramifications, which quietly bubble at first, but soon come to a full rolling boil.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The filmmakers behind HBO’s current trio of true-crime documentaries boldly quest for clarity, knowing full well they may never achieve it. This isn’t an exercise in futility, but an assertion: absolute, black-and-white conclusions to complex stories often aren’t viable, or even realistic. Like the two films preceding it, Who Killed Garrett Phillips is essential.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

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