I have mixed feelings, so much so that I wanted to write a review which I never do.
I want to say I admire the two detectives who stopped at nothing to help solve who was behind the phone calls. And I appreciated hearing the other victims and their stories throughout the documentary.
HOWEVER- this is what got me: the interview of the Hardee's manager. He (like a lot of managers in this story) "accidentally" assaulted one of his employees. We see his story and it is clearly edited so the audience may feel a bit of sympathy for him. Regardless if he fell for a prank, this is still someone who assaulted an employee- should they have this moment of sympathy from the audience? Many of these people committed these crimes in a way to "appease" the alleged cop on the other end, without once stopping to think how they were hurting the victim in this situation.
Well, in a way, I guess it's a pretty thoughtful documentary because I truly cannot tell where the line of innocence is drawn with the managers who did these things to their employees.
The one woman who was giving a retelling of the story kept reiterating how this guy on the other end was basically a mastermind. I felt that was a bit laughable- why not just admit the bosses were gullible and fell for a prank rather than say this was a criminal mastermind? Both my boyfriend and I were watching the retelling of the "officer's strip search instructions" and said how it was immediately super fetish-based. I don't know if people were more gullible to perverts in the early 2000s, I don't know if sexual harassment in the work place was even discussed. But at least in today's society, I can't imagine someone gullible enough to fall for that, so I felt it was a bit redundant and ridiculous to be told "the caller was so clever."
In reality, this caller was just smart enough to call small-town bosses who would listen blindly to any cop's instructions. The key word here is smart ENOUGH. I think it's weird they try to say he was smarter than he seemed. He was truly only getting away with it because of the calling cards.
I'd like to end this by saying my heart truly goes out to the victims of these strip searches. The bosses consistently say "this ruined my life" but... how do they think these employees who were actually stripped and searched feel?
Overall, I have to give this docuseries credit for making me think.
I want to say I admire the two detectives who stopped at nothing to help solve who was behind the phone calls. And I appreciated hearing the other victims and their stories throughout the documentary.
HOWEVER- this is what got me: the interview of the Hardee's manager. He (like a lot of managers in this story) "accidentally" assaulted one of his employees. We see his story and it is clearly edited so the audience may feel a bit of sympathy for him. Regardless if he fell for a prank, this is still someone who assaulted an employee- should they have this moment of sympathy from the audience? Many of these people committed these crimes in a way to "appease" the alleged cop on the other end, without once stopping to think how they were hurting the victim in this situation.
Well, in a way, I guess it's a pretty thoughtful documentary because I truly cannot tell where the line of innocence is drawn with the managers who did these things to their employees.
The one woman who was giving a retelling of the story kept reiterating how this guy on the other end was basically a mastermind. I felt that was a bit laughable- why not just admit the bosses were gullible and fell for a prank rather than say this was a criminal mastermind? Both my boyfriend and I were watching the retelling of the "officer's strip search instructions" and said how it was immediately super fetish-based. I don't know if people were more gullible to perverts in the early 2000s, I don't know if sexual harassment in the work place was even discussed. But at least in today's society, I can't imagine someone gullible enough to fall for that, so I felt it was a bit redundant and ridiculous to be told "the caller was so clever."
In reality, this caller was just smart enough to call small-town bosses who would listen blindly to any cop's instructions. The key word here is smart ENOUGH. I think it's weird they try to say he was smarter than he seemed. He was truly only getting away with it because of the calling cards.
I'd like to end this by saying my heart truly goes out to the victims of these strip searches. The bosses consistently say "this ruined my life" but... how do they think these employees who were actually stripped and searched feel?
Overall, I have to give this docuseries credit for making me think.