Shooting Robert King

Shooting Robert King (aka Blood Trail): follows an aspiring war photographer through 15 years and three conflicts. First off, Robert King is a total asshat. We meet him as a young – egotistical – douche, and see him grow to a middle-aged cold-and-jaded douche. He comes across as the worst parts of the psychotic “Cool Ethan” from Slackers and the grating Josh from Generation Kill (the singing driver). A lot of the “OMG” moments feel set up, or are ridiculously convenient. For a documentary about a photographer, there’s not actually a lot of his work, and it’s mostly nondescript handheld footage from his freelance cameramen buddies in the ‘good old days’. What’s weird is that he clearly wanted to film a documentary from day 1 of his career – hence the abundance of ‘look at me’ and ‘look at the peril’ type interviews he did. There are a couple of more disturbing / shocking moments – pics of dead bodies, and bombing / war aftermath; and a boring deer-hunting simile / parallel that is just unnecessary filler. The best part of the documentary is a 2-minute montage of his best photos; however the best thing on the disc is a 5-minute slide show in the extras – which are more powerful, interesting and tell a better story than the full-length 80-minute documentary. Most annoyingly, the doc doesn’t tell you anything about the wars he’s covering, showing only Robert King trying to make it all about him. Whilst his story is remarkable, having such an unlikeable person at the centre of this makes it very hard to appreciate.

Score: 3/10