Netflix’s documentaries can be hit-or-miss.
Some rarely hit the mark, while others send the internet abuzz and spark that old-school watercooler talk.
And for better or for worse, mostly worse, The Crash falls into the latter category, leaving many of us reeling over what the hell we just watched.
It’s not a particularly good documentary. Netflix tends to be all over the map in its approach to these documentaries. Sometimes they’re trying way too hard not to take a firm stand, even when it calls for.
And other times, they spend so much time securing “gotcha” moments that they’re already rubbing their hands in anticipation of whatever moment will go viral.
There’s almost always an angle, and the more sensational the topic, the better, which is to a degree where things fall when it comes to The Crash and Mackenzie Shirilla.
Documentaries, especially when they involve both the perpetrator of a crime and the victims’ families in the same doc, require a bit of finesse to get all sides of the story.
It’s a fine line between informative and exploitative, and we’re leaning more into the latter in the genre.
But The Crash is deeply unsettling in ways that’s hard even to explain.
The documentary is about a horrific car crash in July of 2022 that resulted in the tragic deaths of two promising teens: Dominic Russo and Davion Flanagan.
Not only was Shirilla the only survivor, but she was the one at the wheel, speeding through a residential area in the wee hours of the early morning and crashing into a building at roughly 100 miles per hour.
The entire documentary revisits some details of the case to ask whether Mackenzie actually intended to crash into that building or if the crash was just an accident.
Essentially, it doesn’t really matter what they believe, considering Mackenzie was eventually charged for murder and sentenced for the crime, getting life sentences wherein she can serve a minimum of 15 years in prison before she’s eligible for parole at the ripe young age of 33.
She got two life sentences for each boy she killed, but, in a move that is a bit alarming, she’s serving that time concurrently.
That means, Mackenzie is essentially serving a two for the price of one sentencing when you get down to it. But hell, that’s not even the most infuriating aspect of this case, and make no mistake, it’s pretty damn enraging.
No, the documentary spends most of its time making the mistake Netflix makes: getting sidetracked, distracted, or trying to hold back some punches when it shouldn’t.
While it doesn’t paint Mackenzie in a great light, far from it really, it does do this weird thing of serving as an indictment against “vapid” youth and social media-obsessed individuals.
We spend so much time scrolling through Mackenzie’s never-ending stream of social media accounts. She had reels and videos coming out of her ass, and more selfies than anyone needs. Everything was up for grabs and served as content.
And that, in itself, is damning, painting the picture of a vain, self-important stoner and mean girl desperately trying to be “cool.”
The doc shows us so many videos and reels of Mackenzie getting high everywhere, from social gatherings with friends to literally in the car while driving. At some point, I was starting to wonder if I was getting a contact high through the damn screen.
Mackenzie herself becomes a poster child for the influencer culture everyone hates, and it’s clear the doc leans into it heavily.
It does Mackenzie no favors in its depiction of her in that regard. But the puzzling move is fixating on her as a high-mean-girl type while pulling back on other aspects of what makes Mackenzie disturbing to watch.
They hint at the fact that this 17-year-old was a bit of a wild child, and that she and Dominic were in an unbelievably toxic relationship. We get some footage and audio recordings that support that Mackenzie was verbally and emotionally abusive.
Dominic’s mother provides a few different examples leading up to that crash that are damning. Dominic shared that Mackenzie had previously driven erratically and threatened to crash the car, among other things.
It’s an extreme contrast to Mackenzie sitting in prison with a top bun, claiming that she and Dominic would be married by now if he were still alive.
We do get some time with Mackenzie during an interview onscreen. But she’s not as prominent as you’d expect. Nevertheless, even the bit of time she’s onscreen, it’s still inadvisable. She barely seems like she knows what to say in the documentary.
She talks about how little she remembers from the crash, keeps reiterating that the biggest message she wants to send is that there was no intent, and feels like she’s just sticking to a script while presenting herself in such an impersonal way that she feels like a pageant girl.
Ultimately, what we see is a young woman who can’t convincingly feign remorse. And footage from her trial supports the same. It’s chilling how nonchalant she is throughout.
Narcissism is what prevails most.
In the meantime, we have her family and a close friend — who apparently never spoke to the police when requested but jumped on a Netflix couch gleefully — trying to do more heavy lifting at framing Mackenzie as anything other than sociopathic.
Ironically, it’s not Mackenzie who makes the worst case for herself amid all of this; it’s her freaking parents.
In many ways, it feels like the apple doesn’t even fall far from the tree, especially when it comes to the father. He sits there, doing an interview about his imprisoned killer daughter, while wearing a graphic tee.
He looks like a guy who works at a comic book store or a hipster cafe that sells you overpriced kombucha. I’m not convinced that his attire and attitude are the exact reason he’s currently facing job loss after this interview.
Everything he says pretty much boils down to “Mackenzie does what she wants.” We have two parents who checked out of parenting a lifetime ago and seemed more interested in being Mackenzie’s friend than anything else.
Why was their teen daughter already living with her boyfriend elsewhere? And why did she smoke so much, especially while driving? Why didn’t they ever hold her accountable for the bullying and other incidents at school?
Her mother implied that she was a good kid who never really got in trouble or had any issues, even though we saw all the ways she was a constant problem.
It’s easy to see how Mackenzie simply doesn’t take accountability for the accident that killed her boyfriend and friend when her parents all but confirm that they’ve never disciplined her or held her accountable a day in her life.
The real issue with Mackenzie, the real story, lies in the fact that there’s more effort spent on indicting social media culture or weed-smoking. Hell, they didn’t even dive more into the actual illegal drugs in the car.
The Crash’s most nauseating story is in the Shirilla family’s tone deafness throughout.
There’s brief police footage when they learn someone died in the crash, and after learning already that their daughter is safe, they express a hope that it isn’t Dom.
The dismissiveness of Davion Flanagan and the loss of his life are pervasive throughout.
On more than one occasion, the Shirillas dismiss him as someone they didn’t really know, or someone who wasn’t really Mackenzie’s friend, just Dominic’s, as if… his life is less important.
It’s absolutely enraging.
Especially as Davion’s father, who serves as the brightest spot in this doc, the most sensible individual who shows such remarkable restraint advocates for his son, his memory, his voice, justice, and his impact.
They pose things like he has a bit more insight than the others.
But it’s mostly just the documentary falling short and getting lost in its narratives. They try to make things less clear-cut by showing select parts, in which it appears that Mackenzie is simply a teenager active on social media, making the case tougher.
We get that moment where, days after the accident, Mackenzie and her mother respond on Instagram to a brand interested in collaborating with Mackenzie. It’s insensitive, tone-deaf, and sickening.
They make a big deal out of her dressing up as a deathly-looking figure for Halloween, when, while ill-advised, it’s not a smoking gun.
But anyone driven to look up the case further after this, or seek out the other documentaries regarding it, will find the real horrors. The severity of the crash, the footage from the firefighters rescuing her, and the horror over the boys’ deaths on a graphic scene.
There’s more information about those final moments of the crash, where the black box supports the notion that the boys were likely trying desperately to stop her before she crashed.
The struggle between drive and neutral, the lack of brake usage but increase in acceleration, and all these mechanics that support intent.
The doc makes a halfhearted attempt at the Shirillas, arguing that Mackenzie has POTS.
But leaves out Mackenzie and her mother speaking “pig Latin” in front of the police, wherein she asks her mother if she should say she had a seizure, or how she mentions that maybe they can take her license from her, as if that’s a fair and reasonable exchange for two lives.
Aiming for nuance where there wasn’t much and getting lost in certain messages leaves The Crash feeling like it knew it wanted to create a viral sensation.
And ironically, the carefully curated but not overtly exploitative construction that manufactures discourse succeeds in that mission.
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