Waco: American Apocalypse (2023)

Title: Waco: American Apocalypse

Year: 2023

Genre:  Crime | Documentary  |

Seasons: 1 |

Runtime:  140 min (entire series)

Creator:  Tiller Russell

 Starring:   David Thibodeau, Chris Whitcomb,Lee Hancock, Bob Ricks

7.1/10

It showcases what happened in 1993 in Waco, Texas when cult leader David Koresh faced off against the federal government in a siege of 51 days.

UNBALANCED & DETASTEFUL

Waco: American Apocalypse is another tiresome docuseries from Netflix in three parts. It gives an archive-based encounter on the events that took place in Texas 30 years ago. It relies heavily on talking heads and archive footage. During these barely three hours of footage, the narrative spends unnecessary amount of time about the arrest. Nothing new is revealed in the documentary series and with the generic soundtrack constantly playing in the background, there is no adequate reason to become entertained of this story. 

There’s a lot of quick cuts, making viewing nauseating. All the experts repeating the former speaker with a few more details. Why Netflix spends so much money and time on a already inconsistent plot.  The cinematography is not that impressive, makes watching this story a dull and tiresome plot tool. The producers of the series seems eager to tell an emotional story behind all of this but it loses it’s momentum. It thrives very hard on grainy, unfocused video-tapes to emulate something of a portrait of the story.  The director, Tiller Russell, of the series has prior to this one produced Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer, which had far more depths and tension than what this unbalanced experience gives. That series had a beginning, middle and an end. It had a forthcoming narrative which this documentary series doesn’t offer.

For something serious like this siege, it feels like the series lacks that momentum. The tension and the buildup through these three episodes. It picks up the pace in the latter episodes but it’s not enough to reclaim the opportunity this sepeciifc series provides. It goes into some details, and gives a solid compliment to other series on this subject. It’s hoverwer better produced than Radical Media docuseries that tends to fill an unnecessary gap in this genre.

Despite having low expectation, it neveer exceed that point of interest for me. It rumbles around in the background and if you know the story ´from the beginning, there’s no suprirse delivered here.

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