30 for 30: Marion Jones Press Pause (2010)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Singleton's entry in the ESPN series takes a look at Marion Jones, the woman who quickly rose to fame with her speed but it all came crashing down after serving six months in prison for lying to the government about taking steroids. There are many ways you can look at this documentary. For me, I think the media's hypocrisy on who uses steroids and in what sport is a major joke. In the NFL you get four games off but in MLB you are looked down upon and each night the news is covering how evil you are. Many will say that Jones didn't deserve prison time for steroids and lying about them but it is what it is. The documentary struck me as strange because I was never really sure where the talented director wanted to take it. He's shown on screen interviewing Jones so you can't expecting too many hard hitting questions from him to her. At the same time you have other people interviewed and really coming down hard on her. Some blame her for this or that while others say her being prosecuted was due to race. What really threw me is that we open up with her tearful confession and we learn that she was a cheater and a liar. This is followed up with us seeing the great talent that she was and see her winning all the Olympic medals. This is a problem because you can't say she's cheating one second and then tell us to look at how talented she is because the majority of this talent could have been due to the cheating. The entire documentary just never really seems to know where it wants to go and in the end it really keeps it from being hard hitting like many other entries in this series. This certainly isn't a bad movie but considering the director you have to think there should have been more to it.