Type in any movie or show to find where you can watch it, or type a person's name.

User Reviews for: Leaving Neverland

bobmoo79
/10  4 years ago
In December 2017 the civil claim launched by Wade Robson and James Safechuck against the companies owned by Michael Jackson Estate was dismissed. During the case the judge presiding over it said no rational fact finder would believe it. This case proceeded after they had already tried to sue Michael Jackson's Estate itself and failed. The initial civil claim had been filed under seal.

Despite knowing all this Wade, James, and their director Dan Reed, repeatedly claimed in interviews that they weren't after money and all they wanted was to raise awareness. Remember. The first case was filed UNDER SEAL. The only positive outcome would be a financial payment IN SECRET. In case you're in any doubt, this totally contradicts claims made while on the promo trail for their film. Of course, if all they wanted was to raise awareness they could have done so without filing any claims at all. A simple newspaper or TV interview would suffice. Alternatively they could have filed for a token amount of $1 as is customary (celebrities such as Taylor Swift have done this in the past). No. Instead they filed for millions of dollars. In secret. Their true motives for making their claims are clear, and it's clear they are lying about that.

During the failed civil claims, the repeated theme became clear - they told stories they could not prove. They then changed them, often totally contradicting themselves in the process, trying to find a way around the law. For example, in total Wade has told 5 DIFFERENT, contradictory versions of the first time he claimed he was abused. The version in this film contradicts that in his civil claim. This is also a theme. In many places this film actually contradicts their previous legal claims. They were also caught lying repeatedly in their legal submissions (hence the judge's comment above).

Needless to say their promotional film did not mention any of this. It did not use any information from many 100s of pages of publicly available legal documents that exposed their lies. It offered no proof that anything they claimed was true.

When questioned, the director said he had thoroughly researched the two accusers and found no reason to doubt them. In different interviews he gave vastly different recollections of how much research had been done. Was it 3 days? 12 weeks? None? Only he knows.
But it is clear he wasn't telling the truth in those interviews - the truth has only one version. IF he had researched at all, as he had claimed, then the choice to exclude ALL of the documented legal evidence from his film is shocking. It means this film is deliberately misleading to incriminate. If he lied and he did not research thoroughly, then it's clear he was completely incompetent and took the word of two proven liars as fact instead of doing due diligence.

I'll leave you to decide whether or not this film should be praised or condemned.
Like  -  Dislike  -  20
Please use spoiler tags:[spoiler] text [/spoiler]
Back to Top