Season one of American Vandal, Netflix latest true crime docu-series asks, who drew the dicks.
Fans of true crime genre are going to be engrossed with American Vandal. With the major question being, is this a true story? Spoiler, it’s not.
Taking place in a nondescript high school in, I think, California, American Vandal, pokes fun at the true crime genre. The basic premise of the 8-part season will be familiar to fans of Serial or Making A Murder.
We follow a documentarian team as they investigate if the right person is being held responsible for the heinous crime that takes place on a school campus. What’s the crime? 27 cars get vandalised causing over $100,000 worth of damage. What did they do to cause so much damage? Someone drew 27 dicks on the faculty members cars.
The main suspect is Dylan Maxwell, the class clown known for drawing phallic symbols around the school. The pranksters along with his crew, the Way back boys, are known for pulling off idiotic stunts but did Dylan do this one? Or is it part of an even bigger conspiracy that stretches all the way to the top?
Making A Vandal
So, as you might guess the subject matter of American Vandal doesn’t strike you as something that sets out to take itself too seriously. Yet, this mockumentary/ docu-series is probably one of the best crime mysteries we’ve seen in the last number of years.
Co-produced with Funny or Die, the 8 part feature expertly pokes fun of every common trope you’ve come to expect from the likes of the aforementioned Serial or Making A Murder. The series is centred around the exploits of Peter Maldonado (Tyler Alvarez) and Sam Ecklund (Griffin Gluck), two junior members of the Oceanside news team. Who, through some brilliant investigative journalism, begin to unravel the case set out against Dylan. Is he guilty of the crime or is he guilty of being the face of how the education system has failed the modern student?
Key to the success of any homage is how true it sticks to the source material. American Vandal definitely sticks the landing on that aspect. A great deal of one of the first episodes is made up with how long it would, theoretically, take for the crime to be carried out. Ala serial. Although other shows had problem done this before Serial probably did it best in recent times.
As is always the case in true crime documentaries, we get a number of side story investigations that seems to be leading nowhere but come back as key elements in the end. Watch out for a hilarious reconstruction that might rival the Silicon Valley DTF ratio sequence.
We also get the American Vandal version of the court case videotapes. Although they aren’t as shocking as the Brendan Dassey tapes, they do help build out the key characters back story.
The more Peter and Sam learn about the case, the more questions pop up. The show does a great job of presenting the trial and tribulations of modern high school right down to people getting notoriety as the episodes of American Vandal are released in the show’s timeline.
Is Dylan Innocent? Who cares!
Without getting into spoilers, Jimmy Tatro is great as Dylan. He plays the role straight down the middle because, much like Peter, you don’t really know if you should trust him or anything he says. Every group has a Dylan and if you don’t who that is then chances are you’re him. With each episode Tatro, a YouTube star in his own right, makes you question if you can actually trust him. He claims to be innocent but is he really the Keyser Soze of the piece?
I also love what they do with presenting the case in American Vandal especially the use of video footage from multiple social media sources. There is an entire sequence that takes place at a party that is deliciously clever and is actually really difficult to follow if you aren’t paying attention. Although this is supposed to be a pastiche of more illustrious works, it actually does a better job of presenting the case than most documentaries I’ve watched recently.
Another thing I enjoyed was how the Peter and Sam actually question their own logic and the process they are involved with.
In fact, one of the episodes focuses on the newsroom 9 and breaking down their potential guilt. Spoilers, Peter and Sam are part of the newsroom 9 along with Dylan. Seeing the two friends come up with a solid case as to why they both might be the guilty party, if Dylan is, in fact, innocent, is a great twist on the genre that many docu-series might otherwise shun.
Splitting Hairs
I came into American Vandal with great expectations and, although they weren’t eventually matched, the show certainly went a long way towards hitting them. It might not hit the heights of Making a Murder or Serial, due to the fact that the case isn’t real, but you shouldn’t be surprised to hear some people talking about American Vandal come to the end of 2017’s lists of best documentaries.
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