Menendez Brothers Netflix Series Is a Shallow Slog

“Monsters” Episode 5, “The Damage Man,” is devoted solely to Erik Menendez’s perspective. Sitting in a jail assembly room, speaking to his lawyer Leslie Abramson (Ari Graynor), Erik (Cooper Koch) recounts “all of that” — the whole lot in his life that led he and his brother, Lyle (Nicholas Alexander Chavez), to homicide their dad and mom, José (Javier Bardem) and Kitty Menendez (Chloë Sevigny). And he does. Erik remembers the 4 alternative ways his father raped him as an 8 yr outdated. He remembers the childlike names he gave every model — easy, evocative labels like “knees” and “mouth therapeutic massage.” He remembers the “actual torture” of his years spent being sexually, bodily, and emotionally abused by his dad: “to nonetheless love him.” He remembers how their mom allowed it to occur, even sensing she was jealous of her husband’s obscene relationship with their son. Close to the top, Erik remembers when he realized what “all of that” meant for the remainder of his life: that he doesn’t know his personal sexuality, if his pure emotions are actual or triggered, if love is one thing he can really feel with the type of purity it ought to all the time supply.

All of that is captured in a single take. Director Michael Uppendahl units his digicam behind Leslie as she sits throughout from Erik. At first, the body is static. Erik talks, and we sit in the identical mounted state as Leslie. However slowly, we begin to zoom in. By the point he’s explaining the episode title, his face is in close-up. The back-and-forth is gone, although it’s clear Leslie’s phrases of encouragement — largely emphasizing that good dad and mom, loving dad and mom, would by no means have executed this, and he’s not guilty for any of it — have left a mark.

“Possibly we’re sociopaths, however are you able to blame us if we’re, when you understand what’s been occurring to us?” Erik says. Properly. Are you able to? That’s the query “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” is asking its viewers. It’s additionally the identical query posed because the trial grew to become a Court docket TV phenomenon within the early ’90s. Right here we’re once more.

“The Damage Man” is a definitive, unflinching perspective. It’s an engrossing 33 minutes — not all the time for the correct causes, however all the time sustaining the stark rawness of reality. It’s precisely what’s lacking in the remainder of “Monsters,” a real crime retelling so obsessive about the identical query posed 30 years in the past that it loses any perspective of its personal; any perspective that could possibly be gained from the good thing about hindsight; any perspective that will make revisiting such an terrible case worthwhile for contemporary audiences. Erik’s perspective is obvious, and it’s particularly convincing in Episode 5, but it surely’s additionally one which dominates the present’s unconvincing makes an attempt to take a look at different angles.

Initially, the collection is rooted behind its titular brothers. The primary episode begins after the murders have taken place, but it surely nonetheless provides us a glimpse of every boy’s life and persona. Erik is disciplined. He wakes up early, works out, practices tennis, and goes to remedy. Lyle is wild. When Erik leaves the home within the morning, Erik is simply getting residence. Later, he pitches harebrained enterprise schemes to his uncle, which is humorous as a result of he truly doesn’t have any hair. (His wig is a recurring joke — just like the oft-derided title of Erik’s film script, “Buddies” — that’s stretched very, very skinny.) Aside, the 2 brothers’ variations are clear. However collectively, you see the bond they share. They’re on the identical web page. They need, no, they want the identical factor: to be free from their tyrannical dad and mom.

While you first see the homicide, it’s graphic. Nauseating. That the gore is a part of the purpose doesn’t make it any simpler to abdomen. Director Carl Franklin frames every shotgun blast like he’s capturing a 3-D grindhouse image. Kitty stretches her hand in entrance of the digicam, solely to have it blown clear off. When Lyle stands over his father’s shoulder, pointing the gun at his head, we get to look at his face disappear in a bloody gush that sprays proper over the low-angled digicam. The collection will revisit this scene infrequently, with differing depictions, but it surely’s this primary hauntingly violent interpretation that issues as a result of it stands in stark distinction to Erik’s monologue in Episode 5. What you hear and don’t see then is rather more rattling than something you truly see elsewhere. It extends our sympathies to Erik, the younger boy, over Erik, the killer. From the brothers’ perspective, there’s little query which crime — the abuse or the murders — is worse.

Within the again half of “Monsters,” after Episode 5’s unshakable exclamation level, the collection bends over backward to think about all potentialities, even when it’s clear their coronary heart stays with Erik. Later episodes highlight the dad and mom, kicking off with Kitty telling her personal therapist, “I hate my youngsters.” One other foregrounds Vainness Truthful reporter Dominick Dunne (Nathan Lane), an aggrieved dad whose daughter was killed by a person who cited previous abuse as a purpose for his legal habits. He hates Leslie, calling her “the dragon woman,” since she typically makes use of the identical authorized technique — urging juries to think about the accused’s mind-set earlier than speeding to judgement. (Remembering an outdated case, Leslie even says, “I needed the jury to see that [my client] was not the monster. Quite the opposite, he was the sufferer.” Hey, that’s the title of the present!)

However every of those new home windows into what occurred are tainted by the storytellers’ apparent disdain for dissenting views. Fortunately, Murphy and Brennan aren’t making an attempt to evoke pity for the dad and mom. (Bardem’s José Menendez is shot like a literal horror film monster, typically showing as if from nowhere or glowering with venom into the digicam.) However seeing the couple complain about their boys — after which seeing their boys act out these reminiscences just like the spoiled wealthy youngsters they probably had been — does little to clarify the twisted motivations of every grownup. As a substitute of digging in, Murphy and Brennan lean on the cycles of abuse to account for the whole lot — a sound purpose to make certain, however one which’s simply type of tossed in, like a lazy summation by a prosecutor tired of their very own case.

Dominick, in the meantime, is simply too smug to be sympathetic, even when Episode 7, “Showtime,” flashes again to his daughter’s trial, the “not responsible” verdict is learn, and he begins screaming on the decide. Maybe it’s that he’s all the time framed in host-mode, sharing his apparently coveted ideas on the Menendez brothers’ trial to a bevy of feast company (presumably there to bodily characterize the numerous, many readers affected by Dominick’s trial protection in Vainness Truthful). Or possibly it’s Dominick’s steadfast refusal to think about any accused legal can be a human being. Or it might simply be that he’s all the time so clearly framed because the one within the fallacious — like a Bond villain, always in monologue, however swigging a drink as an alternative of petting a cat.

Inside “Monsters’” crock pot of cracked theories, there are sturdy performances. Koch earns his episodic highlight, shading Erik in refined and stark shades of tortured distress all through, which completely distinction the brash habits of his loud, obnoxious, massive brother. Chavez makes Lyle an enthralling sociopath whose “the whole lot is nice” disguise is simply as convincing because the few moments the place he’s actually weak. Bardem, to his credit score, absolutely commits to the vicious patriarch he’s requested to embody, even in what might’ve been a really foolish scene involving a male prostitute and golden laurel crown.

Are any of those turns value sitting via 9 hours of smutty true crime recreations? Not likely. If you’re compelled to look at, then Episode 5 ought to be sufficient. “Possibly we’re sociopaths, however are you able to blame us if we’re, when you understand what’s been occurring to us?” That’s the entire collection proper there, in a single sentence. The remainder, all of that, is only for present.

Grade: C-

“Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” was launched Thursday, September 19 on Netflix. All 10 episodes had been launched directly.