This question deals with the alternative tradition in crime films. Rafter discusses this type of crime film within those films dealing with cops, with courtroom drama, and with prison/execution films. What are the hallmarks of alternative tradition films?
For something to be an alternative, one must first define to what it is an alternative. In the case of the alternative tradition in crime films, the films themselves represent a departure from mainstream films that offer a tidy solution to legal and moral issues presented in their stories, stories populated with easily defined villains who are almost always defeated by the equally as easy to identify heroic counterparts.
There are several hallmarks of the alternative tradition, including the unpunished bad guy, unidentified victims, audience or character inability to determine guilt or innocence, seemingly justified crimes committed by ordinary people, and/or criminals engaging in honorable behavior. Although the plot points may differ, central to the construction of these films is moral ambiguity.
One film that serves as an example of the alternative tradition is Capturing the Friedmans (2003), a documentary that tells the story of a man and his son, both of whom were convicted of molesting young boys who were taking computer classes in their home.
The filmmaker tells his story using home movies shot by the Friedman family both before and after the arrests and by interviewing people with firsthand involvement with the real life drama (family members, victims, investigators). The story unfolds with suggestions by victims as well as those who investigated the case that Mr. Friedman and his son may not have committed the alleged crimes – at least not to the degree at which they were prosecuted and punished. Victims and witnesses may have been coerced and evidence may have been manufactured or tampered with. The whole ordeal completely devastated the Friedman family, who on top of managing the possible truth of accusations, eventually had to deal with Mr. Friedman’s apparent suicide.
The film comes off as balanced, honest and comprehensive and in the spirit of crime films of the alternative tradition, leaves the audience asking, “Where these men really guilty?”