Movie review: 'West of Memphis'

The case of the West Memphis Three — Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, imprisoned as teens in the 1993 murders of three Cub Scouts — has become widely known through the activism of A-list actors and musicians who took up the cause, along with three “Paradise Lost” documentaries that called the convictions into question.

After seeing that first “Paradise Lost” film in 2005, Jackson and wife Fran Walsh stepped in, financing their own investigation and enlisting director Amy Berg (the Academy Award-nominated "Deliver Us from Evil") to chronicle the convoluted case and the new findings that were uncovered.

“West of Memphis” is nonfiction filmmaking at its best, a film with a fierce point of view yet one that doesn't pretend to have all the answers or a monopoly on truth. It beautifully blends the detachment of objective observation with the conviction of informed judgment.

Most importantly, it tells a great story, one that surprises, appalls, riles and gratifies, even as it leaves at least as many questions as it resolves.

The case shocked the people of West Memphis, Ark., where 8-year-olds Michael Moore, Steven Branch and Christopher Byers were found naked and hog-tied in a drainage ditch. Two of the boys had drowned, while the third bled to death, his genitals mutilated, evidence prosecutors used to claim they were killed in a satanic ritual.

The suspects were convicted in part on a confession Misskelley later recanted, one filled with conflicting details that critics claim was coaxed and prodded by police interrogators. Baldwin and Misskelley were sentenced to life in prison, while Echols was condemned to death.

After Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky's 1996 documentary “Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills” questioned the prosecution's case, activists rallied around the suspects. Celebrities jumped in, among them Johnny Depp, Eddie Vedder, Natalie Maines and Patti Smith, who all appear in “West of Memphis.”

Rallies were held, benefits were staged, appeals were filed. A woman named Lorri Davis began corresponding with Echols, eventually taking the lead in the case and marrying him while he was on death row.