This documentary about the murder of two young, teen sisters by their psychopathic father with approval of their mentally-challenged mother succeeds in telling the story of what happened. It contains clips & photos of their lives and numerous interviews with friends and family. It contains interviews, police reports, and even the actual call to 911 and the last words of one of the sisters. The story of what happened is horrific and disgusting beyond belief.
However, the film itself was not well-made. Numerous photos, notes, videos of the "pretty" sister, only a few of the "tomboy" sister. Rambling interviews that are not interesting and shed very little light on the subject. Lots of shots of documents like phone records and police reports with barely any explanation leaves the viewer to have to try to read the tiny print and figure out what it means. Even when there were explanations on the screen, the font was hardly discernable from the print it was next to. Visually this just wasn't effective.
The portrayal of the Irvington Texas police and 911 dispatch implies they are idiots and not working on finding the cowardly father Yasser. Truly, what with Texans always bragging on themselves, it seems like they should have been able to arrest this guy by now. There are hundreds of photos and videos of him. And to not be able to come up with anything to arrest the despicable mother Patricia (Tissy)? She lures her two daughters directly to the coward of a father and he immediately shoots them to death, but the police don't think she is an accomplice?
But back to the film itself. There's a painful middle part wherein a woman, with the most monotone voice, drones on about the definition of honor killings, like she's making a public service announcement on cable access. Then the cringy ending in which the mother of the boyfriend of one of the girls (can you guess which girl?) visits the cemetery to put flowers on the "pretty" girl's grave and whine about how ugly the cemetery is and cry and what not. What was the point of that overly long segment? Filling time?
The interviews should have been edited to be interesting. Interviews with people who had nothing interesting to say should have been cut (their blond teacher offers nothing to the film, their teenaged friend had nothing substantial to say, etc). All still shots of phone records and other documents should have explanation with them. To just show them and let us figure it out (or not) was just lazy.
This film should have been an hour, tops. This film should have spoken on the lives of the victims equally. This film should have included explanation for why abused wives behave the way they do. According to this film and the "experts" they interviewed, this wasn't an honor killing either (which in themselves are despicable and horrific). The cowardly father is just a low-life abusive loser who can't handle not being able to control the people around him.
Again, this isn't clear in the film, but it would seem the Texas police or Fox News are the ones that decided to call these cowardly murders "honor killings." Perhaps because this is a descriptor that signals how they want people to react with outrage against immigrants of a certain religion? At least the film does contain a small segment about how the cowardly "father" was not religious and the abusive mother would lie about what religion she identified with when it suited her.
If anyone actually reads this review, keep track of the main important factor - that two teen girls, Sarah and Amina, had their lives stolen from them by abusive parents who, to this day, in Texas, in the USA, hide from police behind boarded up windows and No Trespassing signs, with no justice served.
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