Review: ESPN '30 for 30' turns lens on Duke lacrosse case
Posted March 11, 2016 6:00 a.m. EST
Updated July 13, 2018 2:04 p.m. EDT
"Fantastic Lies" is by no means the best film in ESPN’s 30 for 30 series, but it is the one that will probably be of high interest to the people of the Triangle. The movie chronicles the Duke Lacrosse scandal that began with a party at the home of rented by several players on March 13, 2006. The story is presented largely without comment through interviews and archival footage in a very interesting way. [Full disclosure: WRAL-TV, owned by WRALSportsFan.com and Buzz Sports Radio parent Capitol Broadcasting Co., provided video for the effort.]
Director Marina Zenovich lets the story unfold on screen similar to how it did in many people’s minds a decade ago.
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| Demteri Ravanos interviews 'Fantastic Lies' director Marina Zenovich about her project |
"Fantastic Lies" starts with the kind of background information that makes it hard not to see the three accused players in a negative light. Duke is a separate community from Durham. The lacrosse team is a separate community from Duke. Many of the players had been arrested for misdemeanors related to drunken, rowdy behavior. That is all tied into the largely biased coverage the events received from the likes of Headline News’ Nancy Grace and the News & Observer’s Ruth Sheehan (more on her later).
What is interesting about the way Zenovich chose to tell this story is that she takes viewers, many of whom, let’s face it, will not have lived with the case the way we in the Triangle did, from assumed guilt to the discovery of evidence (or lack thereof) and to the undeniable fact that these three kids were innocent. The characterization of Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong progresses from idealistic to inept to conniving. The structure of the film is interesting to say the least.
I got the chance to talk to Zenovich and asked her about how she went about deciding what interviews and information to use in the film. The three accused Duke Lacrosse players, Read Seligman, Collin Finnerty and Dave Evans, do not appear in the movie aside from in archival footage. Their parents gave Zenovich interviews though, and they help tell the story from an angle that hasn’t really been explored before: What do you do when your kid is facing life in prison for a crime he didn’t commit?
Zenovich also told me that there is a hero to this story, although it takes us a while to get to him on film. It’s Brad Bannon, the attorney on the defense team that ordered a book off of Amazon to learn all he could about DNA and as a result not only helped get his clients acquitted, but also exposed corruption in the private lab where DNA evidence in the case was done. Again, Brad’s is a story that may have been lost to time in a lot of people’s minds.
Are you going to learn anything new in "Fantastic Lies?" Probably not. This is more of an interesting walk down memory lane that highlights a lot of subplots that you’ve probably forgotten, like Ruth Sheehan. The News & Observer columnist wrote a piece at the beginning of the scandal that started “You know what happened. You know you know what happened.”
Sheehan certainly wasn’t alone in jumping to the conclusion that a crime had been committed on March 13, 2006. She just happens to be one of the few who apologized publicly for it. Sheehan speaks on camera about having to come to terms with her biases and her own personal history with sexual assault and why she wasn’t interested in hearing the facts of the case before she first wrote about it. She says she has never spoken with Evans, Finnerty, Seligman or their families, but has heard through mutual acquaintances that they were aware of her apology article and have forgiven her.
Another interesting aspect of the film is that Zenkovich tells you who she didn’t speak to and why. The three accused players and Mike Nifong declined her requests. Duke’s legal team declined on behalf of the school’s president Richard Brodhead. The accuser, Crystal Mangum, who is currently in prison on second-degree murder charges, did want to speak on camera, but the state prison system refused to let her. Zenovich told me that Brodhead is the one interview she was most disappointed didn’t happen because his side of the story is the only one that can’t be pieced together by alternate interviews.
The latest film in ESPN’s 30 for 30 series airs right after the NCAA Tournament Selection Special on Sunday night. It’s worth your time, even if it’s just on DVR, because this story is the defining one of our area in the last decade. It’s a story many of us still talk about (albeit rarely) with friends from other parts of the country. You should take the time to hear details and perspectives that didn’t receive the attention they deserved at the time.
Demetri Ravanos is executive producer of The Morning Show with Mike, Lauren and Demetri on Buzz Sports Radio.
