OldBoy

or stretch the truth? just to make it more dramatic?

for those who have seen this great movie...it is based on truth. a bunch of kids pre-meditate the murder of another who was mostly just a dick.

so they all get caught. at the end Larry tells us the sentence each got in prison. he says Lisa got "life in prison", Ali got "40 years", Heather got "7 years", and Marty "death by way of the electric chair".

well, on the DVD extras you can check out the real life criminals on the Florida website. i did.

Lisa served 9 years. Ali 6 years. Heather, less than 3 and Marty only life in prison! i mean from life to 9 and 40 to 6.

why embellish to such a degree especially with Marty? Isn't this more than creative license when this is an actual case and the DVD points to the actual people?

you decide...

Lisa
Ali
Heather
Marty

garmonbozia

the first possible answer: there is a big difference between what you are sentenced and what you actually end up serving (parole?). also, death sentences get overturned into life in prison sentences through appeals etc....

I don't know all the facts of this (and I did not check all of the people), but for example, if you look at Ali, she was sentenced to 32 years. it's right there on the link you provided.

07/15/1993 2ND DEG.MURD,DANGEROUS ACT 05/19/1995 BROWARD 9312440 17Y 0M 0D
07/13/1993 2ND DEG.MURD,DANGEROUS ACT(CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT) 05/19/1995 BROWARD 9312440 15Y 0M

I could be totally wrong, this is just what I noticed.

NatrlBornThrllr

Yeah, and according to the link you provided, Heather was sentenced to 7 years. People often get out early on good behavior, parole, etc...and death penalties are often lessened to life imprisonment through the appeals process. Not sure if that's what happened here, but I wouldn't be surprised.

-JP

DonnachaOne

Someone changing the facts in a "true" story?

Shock. Horror.

Philzilla

he didn't lie, almost everyone of the kids got their sentences reduced
lisa's out
marty death sentence reduced to life in prison
etc...
most if not all were reduced on appeal as NatrlBornThrllr said

and the movie was based on the book Bully : Does Anyone Deserve to Die? by Jim Schutze

almost a line by line adaptation

dadaluholla

I really find it had to believe a class act like Larry Clark would resort to lying.

grunter

Does Oprah know?

BigDan

If Marty was under 18 at the time the crime was committed, his death sentence (if it hadn't already been reduced on appeal) would've automatically been reduced to life in prison when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that executions for those under the age of 18 at the time their crimes were committed were unconstitutional.

NatrlBornThrllr

Yeah, good call. That Supreme Court ruling was just brought up a couple of days ago in one of my criminal justice classes, and it completely slipped my mind. The one time I get a chance to use something from school in real life, and I fuck it all up. Damn damn damn.

-JP

DVD Josh

I feel this movie is more disturbing than Faces of Death.

marty888

Perhaps in the future, checking the REAL facts might make sense, before proclaiming somebody a liar in a thread title.

OldBoy

i did check the "REAL" facts as you see with the links in my post. and i re-iterated "stretch the truth" in my subsequent post. going from life to 9yrs. is a dramatic difference, regardless of reduced sentence or not. perhaps in the future, you should read the OP before making a p.

NatrlBornThrllr

A 'dramatic difference' doesn't necessarily equate to dishonesty on the part of the director, though. At the end of the film, Clark listed the sentences given out to each participant in the crime. Perhaps the appeals processes reduced some of the sentences, and perhaps some of the culprits were released early on parole...but none of this means that Larry Clark was in any way untruthful with the postscript. Marty was a bit harsh, but I think that's the point he was trying to get across.

-JP

conscience

Check out the end credits for your answer. I have the dvd, but I don't have the time to type out exactly what the credits say (but I do remember seeing the note), but here is what is over on IMDB:

And Marty was not under eighteen when he and the others murdered Bobby. This loser was, I believe, twenty or almost 20.

Great movie, and the book has a lot of detail that is not in the film (especially the prostitution deal -only mentioned in a split second in the film- with Ali). A good, quick read.

And FWIW, Lisa and Ali say that a lot that was portrayed in the book (and obviously the film) never happened the way it is told by the author.

Peep

Why accuse somebody of lying when you could have just as easily asked as to why the website differs from the movie?

steelpotato

Huh? At the ends of the credits at least theatrically there was a disclaimer saying the sentences were reduced...