emilywes56
Last week I watched this documentary. I have a very negative opinion about the people who made this documentary and the people who promoted it. I was looking for a documentary or a film by David Crowley himself and his crew, instead, I watched a documentary with the same title as his movie was going to have and a plot that lead from the beginning to the result that he did kill his family and himself. It is quite annoying that the director and producer used the title of the movie that he was going to make, "A Gray State". Why would they do this? It is a different film, it is a documentary, to put this exact title is misleading and unacceptable, when in fact they attack his own personality and daily life.
Disturbing is the fact that, whoever is behind this documentary had full access in his personal diaries, personal moments with his family, personal discussions with his wife or his kid. Even if this is the most useful part of this film, because we get to know more detail about how he worked and how he LOVED THEM DEEPLY, the content is not objectively put into the plot. They want to design throughout different stages of his life, the portrait of a crazy man. But that is it. They want it but they do not achieve it.
This documentary has huge gaps, and from beginning until the middle has a steady pace, giving us sigh of the behind the scenes from his production of the film. We see how he thinks, how he wants to bring his movie to life. We see that he encourages people to know about the government of America, he speaks of how he thought of army and what made him change his mind, irreversably. David Crowley is honest. He admits he killed people, he admits he was in the battle field "defending" his country. He has seen the truth and wants to do something about it. He is BRAVE. Every man or woman that speaks in the film about him, speaks words of kindness, they say how perfectionist he was and how he would help others. We can understand a person, from the way he acts and the way he talks. He seem to be conscious about everything, he has understand how he should stand up against the injustice he has experienced.
TRUTH coming out from simple people IS ALWAYS irritating for the ones that want to keep people sleeping and being numb.
He speaks about how American government uses its soldiers, he speaks about the marcial law and how they want to pass it without anyone noticing it. He speaks about the huge distance between the elite and the society, the weak and the ones in power. He refers to a New World Order.
It is no secret they killed them all. They gave us a photo of ALLAH AKBAR written in the wall, and a diary oddly put infront of the scene of murders and they're done with it. Again, the terror of the muslim, but what muslim is that, when both David and his wife where Christians?
He had a huge desire to get this movie done. His wife and his daughter were his biggest supporters. Suddenly, when he announce that he will make this film, many people are getting interested, many people ask for this person to be one voice of hope in this dark present times. He is excited, he has his film crew, his wife helping him with everything, his friends believing in him. He makes public speach and shows a trailer of the film that he made without many money, so he can raise the amount of money he needs to make it happen.
THE AMOUNT OF MONEY IS there, he has all the help to make it real feature film. THE TRAILER OF THE FILM IS EVERYWHERE, in every social network. People see it, speak about it, it goes viral.
........
Suddenly, something happens.
David and his family isolate themselves from their friends, their families. The production stops slowly to proceed. They are staying together into their house and they seem to be worried about something. Again, they are together, working inside the house.
gjkrulick
Ultimately I enjoyed this movie but as others have noted, the film maker does not spend much time on any other possible conclusion than the narrative you are left with. Two small bits with the keyboard jockey conspiracy guys is the only real glimpse into an alternate story as to what happened with this young family. I happen to agree with the probable answer that mental illness drove David to do the unthinkable but i would have preferred a bit more time having been spent on other possibilities. I am sure I will now go down the internet rabbit hole to find any "evidence" of a conspiracy as the film really did not explore that angle at all. My specualtion would be that the film maker was convinced, after investigating the story so deeply, that what he presents is the truth. I was just disappointed that Netflix eludes to the story being more of a conspiracy in the description.
neener3707
While I do think this was a great documentary with an interesting enough story to tell, it was slightly repetitive in spots. About a new director with budding potential named David Crowley who is mysteriously murdered while creating an admittedly provocative film about a police state with an oppressive government. The story, while repetitive at times, does a great job telling the story to the viewer, providing an easily understood story of David's personal life, his life as a promising new director, and his families unfortunate end. But as I said before, the only slight drawback is that it often repeats itself when telling the story. And we will discuss it.The film jumps around between David's personal life, his work on the film, and his murder. The issue is SOMETIMES, the story repeats itself when starting a new section. I found myself thinking that the film already explained that he was a potentially great film maker, feeling that the film repeats its to remind you of things that didn't happen too long ago for me to forget and need to be reminded. I would have also liked to hear more about his murder, which I found to be an interesting plot line that wasn't fleshed out as much as I would of hoped. But I must emphasize that these are only minor issues.Over all I would recommend the film to anyone, though some may find it to be too conspiracy theory laden, but as an avid documentary viewer, I enjoyed it.
mj-04155
The story does not provide any insight on any the alleged conspiracy theory, neither does it delve into the psyche of the protagonists. To me the story is nothing more than the sad unfolding of a young person's mental illness with a tragic ending. We know nothing about the protagonist's childhood, family upbringing or intimate relationships. All the movie does is interview friends and family who speculate on and on his apparently disintegrating marriage. Did he suffer from PTSD? Paranoid schizophrenia with delusions of grandeur mania? Very few concrete facts, a lot of speculation...
