Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008) - Kurt Kuenne

After Dr. Andrew Bagby is murdered in a parking lot, being shot five times, his parents and friends are left in a state of shock.  This sense of shock only escalates when Andrew's family and friends learn that Andrew's ex-girlfriend, Dr. Shirley Turner, is pregnant with Bagby's unborn son.  With Shirly being wildly believed responsible for Bagy's murder, filmmaker Kurt Kuenne created this film as a tribute to his friend Andrew, being something his son would wildly appreciate in due time.   Kurt Kuenne's Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son about His Father is hands down one of the most intimate and emotionally exhausting portraits of a tragic death I have ever seen.  This is a film which I highly recommend you go into as blindly as possible because what transpires is a heart-wrenching, roller-coaster ride of a crime story that just seems to get more and more frightening as Kurt Kurenne's film digs deeper into the battle for custody which transpires between Shirly Turner and Andrew Bagby's family.  Without going into much details about what transpires, this is a devastating film which is likely to make one angry and frustrated.  With Dear Zachary, Kurt Kuenne doesn't have some grand theme about the failures of our justice system, instead opting to focus on the lives affected by this tragedy.  While I tend to not be a fan of "talking head" documentaries like Dear Zachary, the film does just enough to satisfy me stylistically.  The bottom line though is that Dear Zachary plays out like a narrative crime story, with some devastating twists and turns which left me glued to the screen while watching.
8.5/10

---