Watch on Netflix: Eric and Lyle Menendez Tell Their Truths in 2-Hour Documentary

They will be able to speak their truth (again). After more than 30 years behind bars, Eric and Lyle Menendez have been given the opportunity, thanks to a documentary produced by Netflix, to repeat their version of the facts and the reason why they took the lives of their parents on August 20, 1989.

Director Alejandro Hartmann follows the thread of their lives for 2 hours and enriches the audio testimony of the two prisoners with the help of archival images and the participation of many heroes: the journalist Robert Rand, who covered the trial, the then prosecutor Pamela Bozanic. , Menendez family members and even jurors from the first trial.

If we don’t see the two Menendez brothers today in the picture and the film crew was only able to record the vocals of the two heroes, the editing of the documentary remains no less effective. It must be said that the case was extremely publicized and the first trial was even then broadcast on the court’s TV channel.

Two brothers do not change versions

You won’t find out more if you watch Season 2 of Monsters on Netflix. If Ryan Murphy’s series is flawed and multiplies its point of view, it doesn’t shy away from asking about the physical and psychological abuse the boys endured over the years.

This documentary places more blame on the judicial system and whose various failures were detrimental to them at the time, such as the Rodney King case that led to the Powder and O.J. Simpson’s acquittal a few years later… Without any particular villains, the film tries to show how Judge Stanley Martin Weisberg didn’t offer Eric and Lyle a second fair trial.

‘It’s not my job’: This is what the creator of monsters refused to prepare for the Netflix series about the Menendez brothers.

The latter two still take the time to defend some problematic aspects of their line of defense, such as the elder’s confession to Norma Nowell, where he shows the less pleasant side of his personality. The latter sidestepped the story, explaining it as a “detail” in the trial. Or their confession recorded by Oziel, which would ultimately not be admitted into evidence.

The documentary is much less in-depth than the monster series (which is also fiction, mind you) and perhaps even less detailed (there’s no mention of the script Eric wrote and what he actually wrote). But it allows viewers to find out what happened to the Menendezs after they were sentenced to life in prison.

Since then, they have become advocates for a cause that touches them and goes beyond them: How can we change society’s view of sexual assault on men? One thing is for sure, a whole new generation has embraced its story, and the publicity offered by Netflix will certainly help push the theme forward. And maybe one day they will be released.

The Menendez Brothers, watch on Netflix.