They Call Us Monsters” goes inside a Sylmar facility for holding violent juveniles and trains a camera on three incarcerated teenagers facing various murder and attempted murder convictions that could land them in prison for life. (In California, juveniles between 14 and 17 can be tried as adults.)
But while we’re primed to see a complicated picture of the criminal justice system as it applies (or misapplies) to a handful of unformed adolescents, what’s mostly on tap is the filming of a 20-week screenwriting course for the trio, led by Gabe Cowan, that doubles as a therapy session for the filmmakers’ purposes (and a back-patting exercise).
That means one extra idea is tossed into the film — art versus reality when telling one’s story — which yields little that’s interesting from the subjects (pot, sex and violence animate the teens’ imaginations) and ultimately dissipates the impact of an otherwise conscientious doc.