‘The Excellent Neighbor’ overview: Crime documentary composed of bodycam footage

You’ll be able to hear the calm aid within the voice of one of many cops reporting to against the law name, solely to find a bunch of regular girls and boys having fun with themselves as a substitute of a citable disturbance — he’d somewhat all of them be having time as a substitute of “robbing individuals.” Routinely dispatched to this unassuming avenue in Marion County, Fla., the officers are invariably charmed by the tight-knit households they discover, joking with the youngsters, commiserating simply with the dad and mom. Their bodycams delicate to each tiny utterance, they appear to understand that the actual nuisance right here is Susan Lorincz, the offended white lady who retains calling them to complain, not the youngsters taking part in soccer in an adjoining discipline.

There may be little consolation to this actuality, although, as Geeta Gandbhirs devastating documentary “The Excellent Neighbor” unfolds, one police go to after one other. That’s as a result of a prologue of sirens and sorrow tells us the place that is all heading: a summer time night time in 2023 when Lorincz shot a gun by means of her locked entrance door and killed her neighbor, Ajike Owens, a Black mom of 4. The expertise of watching what results in it’s singularly dread-inducing.

Even because the bodycam footage reveals a supportive group undeserving of persistent disruption — a lot much less preventable disaster — this story isn’t simple to soak up. Nevertheless it’s as important as motion pictures get, particularly if we would like a clearer understanding of the matrix of things threatening our nation’s social cohesion, particularly endangering the lives of individuals of colour in states the place controversial “stand your floor” statutes exist.

As a result of whereas “The Excellent Neighbor” is, on probably the most visceral stage, a documentary horror movie constructed with police footage, it additionally reveals how a violent tragedy might be unwittingly manifested by unchecked grievance and a regulation that weaponizes white concern greater than it guards anybody’s peace.

Gandbhir, to whom Owens was a beloved household good friend, was given entry to 2 years of Marion County Sheriff’s Workplace’s bodycams and interviews. However somewhat than use them as flashbacks in a extra conventionally assembled retelling, she creates a story out of the uncooked footage, asking you to evaluate a neighborhood feud with your individual eyes, ears and emotional intelligence throughout half a dozen or so police calls, all initiated by the jittery, exasperated Lorincz. It’s a showdown that we observe over 14 months.

“The Excellent Neighbor” seems like a daring strategy in an age when context is in brief provide and documentary filmmakers can avail themselves of narration and authentic interviews to inform the total story. Gandbhir, although, trusts our instincts for readability, assured that the buildup of incidents makes the culpability unmistakable. There are seen alerts that counsel Lorincz’s unaddressed psychological well being points and cops commonly telling the youngsters and oldsters easy methods to cope with their troublesome neighbor, however by no means vice versa. What turns into eye-opening is the naivete of regulation enforcement commonly placating one lady’s harmful marketing campaign of prejudiced aggression, performing as if nothing worse will come of it in a state that offers terrified residents the correct to make use of lethal drive.

After the killing, when Gandbhir’s lens shifts to interrogation footage combined with scenes of a damaged group’s grief-stricken public protesting, we get extra proof of who in our society will get the advantage of the doubt. “The Excellent Neighbor” does go away us with a patiently earned second of justice. Nevertheless it’s haunted by the notion {that a} deadly rage prevailed, {that a} crime was allowed to occur and an bizarre, trusting American neighborhood — the place a loving mother unhesitatingly tells an inquiring cop, “All these youngsters are mine” — isn’t protectable floor.