Watch Before Reading The Art Forger by Barbara A. Shapiro
Only a month before this documentary was released, I'd read The Art Forger by Barbara A. Shapiro which begins with this famous robbery. I highly recommend the novel. I remember the robbery all those years ago. I wish that I had seen this before reading the novel. I can't imagine that many people will find this long series to be even remotely interesting.This four-part series seems a bit long-winded for this case. I'm just finishing E01 and wonder how they will stretch this out. I wanted to review what I've seen so far. The investigation was shoddy, at best, almost criminally negligent, at least by today's law enforcement standards.
Some of the people interviewed in this seem to be using it as a platform for their own purpose, to sell themselves. The white-haired woman who was a former guard really is a distraction, as are others and they take focus away from the actual crime. I blame the director for this as he should have told these people to contain themselves a bit.
The law enforcement people all seem to be useless humps as the crime hasn't been solved and nothing has been recovered. They all try to come across as crime solving geniuses, but history says otherwise. This means that everything they have to say really adds up to doodly-squat.
The thieves spent 81 minutes inside the museum. Holy cow! The hippie guard should be jailed just for stupidity on his part because he let the thieves into the building. Hippies are afraid of police and authority so he buckled very easily. That doesn't do anything to solve the crime, but the investigators should have pistol-whipped him just to teach him a lesson. Just being a hippie in 1990 warrants a beat-down. Everyone hates hippies, but it's ridiculous that the former U. S. assistant attorney Robert Fisher implies that the hippie was involved and may have taken one of the paintings himself. Then what? He traded it for a little weed? A malodorous hippie who doesn't seem to have even the most casual relationship with personal hygiene and was probably going "commando" the night of the robbery, yet he's somehow capable of pulling off a multi-million-dollar art heist? Absurd.
Most of this series is simply wild and unfounded speculation as to what happened the night of the robbery and what happened to the artwork that was lost in the heist. The Scotland Yard guy's theory about how drug dealers use paintings as collateral didn't make much sense and I have to call BS. This should have been reduced to no more than two episodes.
score 6/10
leftbanker-1 8 April 2021
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6791186/15124
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