Netflix's Untold documentary revisits dark moments in sports: controversies, failures, chicanery and injustice. It has a strong track record of finding fascinating stories. Its latest episode, The Murder of Air McNair, looks at the suspicious death of a football star, which sounds promising, but if there's anything new to explore, Untold doesn't find it.
The basic test for an hour-long documentary is whether it can provide a deeper summary of the facts than a viewer could get from 10 minutes on Google. Untold barely makes it past that level.
Directors: Rodney Lucas, Taylor Alexander WardStars: Bud AdamsIsaac Bruce, Priya David
It's mostly a retelling of the core facts. In 2009, retired quarterback Steve "Air" McNair, 36, was found dead in an apartment in Nashville, Tennessee, after being shot four times. Next to him was the body of his 20-year-old girlfriend, Sahel Kazemi, killed by a single bullet to the head.
Police interviewed McNair's acquaintances, Wayne Neely, who had called 911 but left the scene before police arrived, and Robert Gaddy, who had recently argued with McNair over money related to a joint venture. They also spoke to Kazemi's ex-boyfriend, Kenneth Norfleet, and Adrian Gilliam, a felon who admitted to selling Kazemi the murder weapon. Gilliam had claimed not to know her, but it was later revealed that he had exchanged dozens of calls and messages with Kazemi in the weeks before her death.
Police ultimately determined the tragedy was a murder-suicide. Kazemi had been struggling with his finances and mental health and, they said, may have been angry to discover McNair was seeing other women. Critics of the investigation believe other suspects should have received more attention than they did.
There is not much more to say as far as the case is concerned. We see footage of police interviews that reveal nothing, examine crime scene photographs (as well as gruesome shots of the bloody gun), and hear brief recollections from the local police department’s investigating officer. Vincent Hill, a private investigator who has led calls for the case to be re-examined and has written books about McNair’s death, is interviewed. But he only appears in the last 10 minutes of the show, because it doesn’t take long for his opinion to be made clear. He believes Gilliam should have been the prime suspect, and in 2010, he tried to persuade a grand jury to reopen the case with a 32-page dossier. They refused due to a lack of evidence. Gilliam declined to be interviewed for the show.
Untold is at least quick in its analysis of the frustrating murder case, as it also sets itself the task of recapping McNair’s career. Again, though, the subject matter is not sufficiently salient. McNair was an excellent football player, publicity-shy and team-oriented. He was capable of making spectacular long passes, but he was also known for running the ball, a form of play that some NFL quarterbacks avoid because of the risk of injury.
In the 1999 season, he led the Tennessee Titans to the Super Bowl against the St Louis Rams, a classic game in which McNair engineered a comeback that came within inches of success when wide receiver Kevin Dyson, after receiving the ball from McNair, was tackled at the one-yard line as the clock ran out, his arm outstretched desperately trying to push the ball into the end zone and tie the score.
The 2000 Super Bowl made McNair a star. The game was famous enough to be mentioned in the movie Cast Away: When Helen Hunt tells Tom Hanks what's been going on while he's been marooned on an island, she includes the information that the Titans "almost won."
Aside from that, there's not much else to tell about McNair's sports history. He was very good. He was well-respected. He had a long and successful career in an era when black quarterbacks were rarer than they are now. But… that's about it.
The show's best moment is a minor but poignant revelation. After the final whistle of the Super Bowl, Titans coach Jeff Fisher was seen speaking into McNair's ear as the quarterback knelt on the turf, distraught at having so narrowly missed out on his sport's biggest prize. That day, Fisher refused to tell reporters what the two men had said. Now, he confesses that they were simply saying they loved each other.
McNair's colleagues have only good words for him. A former teammate expresses a desire for his friend to be remembered for how he played the game, not how he died. It's an admirable goal, but Untold hasn't helped the cause.
Comments
Post a Comment