Moving Pictures

MURDER, MERCY, AND THE MURKY MAZE OF THE CYNTOIA BROWN CASE IN NETFLIX DOC

BY JOE NOLAN, FILM CRITIC

On the night of Aug. 6, 2004, Cyntoia Brown shot and killed Johnny Allen in his bed at his South Nashville home. Allen had picked Brown up outside of an East Nashville Sonic restaurant. Brown was a homeless 16-year-old runaway at the time the 43-year-old Allen allegedly propositioned her for sex.

Brown had been staying in a hotel with her boyfriend/pimp who had threatened her into prostitution. After Brown suggested going to a hotel, Allen insisted on taking Brown back to his house. Brown claims that Allen made a point of displaying an intimidating gun collection, and that when she resisted his advances he reacted with anger and reached for a weapon before Brown used her own gun to kill Allen.

Nobody, not even Brown, denies that she killed Allen. But the context and the circumstances that lead to the murder created years of hearings and incarceration for Brown before Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam granted her clemency in 2019. The new Netflix documentary Murder to Mercy: The Cyntoia Brown Story isn’t a deep dive into the specific circumstances of the night of Allen’s murder or the evidence and arguments that lead to Brown’s conviction. It’s worth noting that Brown said on social media that she did not authorize the documentary and did not have anything to do with its production.

“While I was still incarcerated, a producer who has old footage of me made a deal with Netflix for an UNAUTHORIZED documentary, set to be released soon,” she wrote on Instagram and Twitter. “My husband and I were as surprised as everyone else when we first heard the news because we did not participate in any way.”

Contemporary true crime fans used to sifting through the forensic minutiae of a crime scene or re-examining the testimony of an expert witness in a 20-year-old cold case might find the documentary to be lacking in sensational details and whodunit tension. To its credit, Murder to Mercy

is unique in contemporary true crime storytelling, and it makes up for its lack of microscopic focus with broad contextualizing and generations-deep personal history. The film demonstrates how perspectives about that night in 2004 have changed over time, and how those changes made the case a cause célèbre for stars like Rihanna and Kim Kardashian West before Brown was freed in 2019.

Director Dan Birman’s Me Facing Life: Cyntoia’s Story was screened at the Nashville Film Festival back in 2010, and his new film is an updated version of the earlier work that brings Brown’s story full circle. Many contemporary documentaries come complete with a mission or a point of view, but, again, Birman’s film thankfully upsets expectations by letting the violence and chaos of Brown’s past speak for itself even as he presents the passionate persistence of Brown’s defenders, and the heartbreaking story of generational abuse, addiction and mental illness that contributed to Brown being trafficked for sex when she was barely old enough to drive a car.

The biggest break in Brown’s case came in 2017 when a change in Tennessee laws made it impossible for a minor to be considered a prostitute, thankfully reconsidering girls like 16-year-old Cytntoia to be victims of sex trafficking. When a local Fox 17 piece on the change in the law connected it to Brown’s case the clip went viral and a #FreeCyntoia campaign erupted across social media platforms.

While ongoing court cases connected to Jeffrey Epstein continue to remind us that global child sex trafficking is systematic and widespread even at the highest levels of wealth and power, Murder to Mercy gives us an intimate look at a particular case that shows us how young people may be victimized right here on the streets of Nashville. The documentary is of particular interest for The Contributor’s readers who are already well-informed regarding the day-to-day vulnerability of kids living on the kids living on our streets.

Murder to Mercy: The Cyntoia Brown Story premiered on Netflix on April 29

Joe Nolan is a critic, columnist and performing singer/songwriter based in East Nashville. Find out more about his projects at www.joenolan.com.