Marc Silver’s Sundance prize-winner takes us inside the court during the trial of Michael Dunn, a white, middle-aged man who shot and killed African American teenager Jordan Davis during a Florida petrol station altercation in November 2012. Annoyed by the “thug music” (the defendant insists he used the term “rap crap”) booming from a neighbouring car, Dunn became embroiled in an argument that ended with him firing 10 shots into the vehicle. Jordan and his three friends were unarmed, but Dunn claimed he believed he saw a shotgun and was in fear of his life. Offering a balanced but impassioned account of the case, Silver, director of 2013’s Who Is Dayani Cristal?, puts the viewer in the position of the jury, interspersing testimony with police videos, phone recordings and heartbreaking interviews with Davis’s friends and family. The evidence against Dunn, particularly from his clearly distressed fiancee, is damning, but Silver widens his scope to depict a world in which racial prejudice is rife, young African Americans are demonised by default and “stand your ground” laws support the right to be armed and fearful, a lethal combination.
.jpg?w=600)
