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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
10
Mixed:
5
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews
The TelegraphJan 3, 2020
Season 1 Review:
Interviews with old school friends, remembering a young woman frozen in time, were supplemented with animations of Lee. This was a potentially exploitative flourish that somehow landed the right side of mawkish. ... [Amy Berg] took a person who had been defined only by a terrible evil done to her – and the media carnival that followed with Serial – and restored her right to be remembered as a human being.
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Mar 12, 2019
Season 1 Review:
The Case proves especially adept at shifting moods, from the emotional excess of adolescence to the muted tension and fear that snakes through every appearance of courtroom footage. In doing so, director Amy Berg creates not only a portrait of Hae Min Lee but of the people, city, and cultural intersections that shaped both her life and afterlife. This docuseries has a sprawling cast of people, each providing further shading of the emotional and personal truths they carry due to the devastation of this case.
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Mar 8, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Although it starts a little bit rocky and unfocused, The Case Against Adnan Syed eventually does an admirable job of focusing--doubters might say shaping--the various stories into something plausible. It seems silly to hope for a huge revelation in its final hour, but with such a fascinating case, it would be even sillier to doubt that another unexpected twist might arise.
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Mar 13, 2019
Season 1 Review:
It is, for the most part, an engrossing account, although the filmmakers employ one extremely questionable device to help illustrate what had only been heard, not seen, using animation as a visual aid during voiceover excerpts read from murder victim Hae Min Lee's diary.
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Mar 8, 2019
Season 1 Review:
While Serial kept listeners on tenterhooks from week to week, The Case Against Adnan Syed is a more granular and less wholly absorbing experience. Berg’s series is most riveting, and sad, when she puts the specifics of the case aside to focus on the people whose lives have been irrevocably damaged by Lee’s murder and its aftermath.
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Mar 11, 2019
Season 1 Review:
If this documentary added anything substantially new to the conversation that Serial began in 2014, its efforts might feel more worthwhile. Instead, in its determination to uncritically embrace the narrative Serial created, it accomplishes the opposite of its aim to show that Syed was wrongfully convicted.
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Mar 6, 2019
Season 1 Review:
The Case Against Adnan Syed, at least in the first three hours, isn't a groundbreaking docuseries nor will it lead to another frenzy of obsessives. It's mostly just a well-done addendum to a well-known story: a few extra notes, a new theory here or there, an interesting visit or phone call that quickly gets dropped.
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ColliderMar 6, 2019
Season 1 Review:
Yes, for fans of true crime series, Berg’s documentary is a riveting exploration of the foibles of the justice system, especially when it comes to dealing with minority kids in a Baltimore suburb. For listeners of Serial, it’s literally an eye-opening experience. ... But whether or not that’s enough to warrant another look into a case that may ultimately be unsolvable, and one where potential rectification for Adnan is already working its way through the legal system, is less certain.
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Mar 5, 2019
Season 1 Review:
A broadcast that breaks no ground, that succeeds in re-airing exculpatory information about Syed but falls short as a documentary and as television. The Case Against Adnan Syed is a misbegotten rehash of a person whose renown belies that his story can’t sustain multiple retellings.
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