Shoot Down | Review

In the hierarchy of the United States’ global enemies, the impoverished country of Cuba is indeed lower on the chain of actual threats – but if you live in the hemisphere called the south of Florida, you’d beg to differ. Cristina Khuly’s takes family tragedy, international conflict and reconstructs the fateful day where four new lives were lost at sea. Shoot Down is a subtlety strong example of a docu that clarifies the discussion, objectively sets out to leave no stone unturned, and while it doesn’t take dead aim at one guilty party in particular it is the connection that is made between the ties that bind that make this ordinary-looking micro docu into a more challenging argument.

A collection of news images that many Floridians have seen over the years are the docs’ more difficult images to digest. With their makeshift boats that often make their way across but without any presence of the person who paddled all that way for a better life. The unforgiving Florida Straits are the unfortunate final resting spot for many Cubans willing to die in order to salvage a better life from Castro’s firm grip. At the core of this doc, you’ll get a sense of the noble humanitarian cause for eye in the sky aid, but when a policy amendment in immigration rules changes for the worse, the search and rescue operations in their inoffensive planes comes with an offensive, pro-democracy rhetoric.

With an open investigation angle and structured in a comprehensive manner that initially explores the preceding events leading up to the February 24th 1996, Khuly’s tardy posthumous debate among a wealth of talking-heads initially presents the humanitarian connection of Cubans in a democratic society and Cubans kept behind invisible bars but the doc’s best sparks the debate by curiously stating how two opposing governments apparently worked together. The reconstructed in air dogfight gives an idea of the gravity of the murder scene and shows that the obvious ones with the blood on their hands are at fault but the black eye extends past a trigger happy fighter pilots and Cuban spies – the respective presidents of Cuba and the U.S don’t look to good and neither does the head of Brothers to the Rescue operation.

Rating 3 stars