Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Menendez Brothers’ on Netflix, a Documentary That Tries to Navigate a Slippery Moral Slope

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This week on Please Don’t Force Us To Have A Definitive Opinion On This Theatre is The Menendez Brothers , a Netflix true crime documentary that follows the streamer’s hit Ryan Murphy-created series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story . The doc, directed by Alejandro Hartmann, recounts the epic story of two Beverly Hills brothers who murdered their parents in 1989, and defended their actions during a pair of highly publicized mid-’90s trials by saying they were sexually abused for years by their father, Jose Menendez, their pleas ignored by their mother, Kitty Menendez. They were sentenced to life in prison, and have been incarcerated since 1990. In recent years, the general societal push for greater understanding of abuse victims resulted in the Menendez brothers’ story resurfacing, and a movement to get them retried for manslaughter instead of murder, which would result in their release – a point of view this documentary, which features audio interviews with both brothers, leans pretty heavily towards.

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The Gist: We hear a tearful 911 call from Lyle Menendez, claiming he and younger brother Erik came home and found their parents dead, shot to death in their living room. In truth, they had purchased shotguns and perpetrated the crime themselves, and managed to skate by for several months without being suspects because, as many of this documentary’s talking heads attest, the presumption is that no clean-cut, well-to-do rich boys would ever do such a thing. Notably, their father Jose was a very rich man, once the head of the Hertz car-rental corporation and RCA Records (he was instrumental in the success of Puerto Rican boy band Menudo); he was a refugee of the Cuban revolution who came to the U.S. with nothing and worked his way to the top. It was a high-profile case that made significant headlines. After the slayings, Erik and Lyle went on a spending spree and remained mostly unscrutinized, although both of them say, in interviews conducted by Hartmann in 2023, they were tormented by their deeds.

Eventually, through a series of dramatic convolutions (Erik’s psychologist’s extramarital girlfriend, angry at being dumped, tipped off the authorities), the brothers were arrested and tried in the midst of a classic early/mid-’90s media circus. The then-recently launched Court TV cable channel had cameras in the courtroom, documenting all the details of the case. There was enough damning evidence that there was no chance of Erik and Lyle dodging culpability, so the defense leaned on the why-they-did-it argument: they had been physically, sexually and psychologically abused by their father for years, and feared he’d follow through on alleged threats to kill them.

Hartmann talks to a few key players in the case (prosecutors, expert witnesses, jury members), and journalists provide context (one damns himself a bit by saying he was “thrilled to pieces” to be covering the Menendez murder, because it was “a career maker”). In archival footage, we see the Menendezes’ tearful court testimony and countless TV-news and talk-show clips, illustrating the blanket media coverage, much of it sensational. Eventually, the doc gets to the recent social media-driven movement that pushes a #MeToo-inspired notion that the brothers’ case should be reconsidered in the context of society’s enlightenment in regards to victims of traumatic abuse. Some agree with this idea, and some don’t, but we hear more from the former in this documentary.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Netflix has a history of producing documentaries alongside fictionalized accounts of high-profile true crime stories: Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story , also created by Murphy, and the doc Conversations With a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes ; the feature film The Good Nurse was accompanied by the nonfic film Capturing the Killer Nurse .

Performance Worth Watching: Give this one to Hartmann for illustrating how public opinion has changed with two clips featuring Oprah Winfrey: One, during the trial, sees the talk show host and media mogul criticizing the defense for using “psychological manipulation” on the brothers. Later, a clip from Oprah’s show in which she famously filled the audience with male sexual-abuse survivors to advocate for them.

Memorable Dialogue: Two points of view:

“It was a culture of silence.” – Erik Menendez, referring to his family’s serialized abuse

“It was fabricated.” – prosecutor Pamela Bozanich, on the Menendez’s abuse defense

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Let’s be honest here: The Menendez Brothers almost certainly doesn’t land its interviews with Erik and Lyle if it doesn’t advocate for them. For what it’s worth, they seem earnest and sympathetic in their audio-calls from prison, although Hartmann never seems to have asked them a difficult question. The director includes one key dissenting voice in Bozanich, who’s so convinced the brothers are lying, she seems astonished that anyone would even make such a documentary.

The majority of talking heads seem, well, showboaty, many carrying an air of self-promotion for their writings on the topic, almost relishing the salaciousness of a story that consumed a lot of cultural bandwidth three decades ago. Notably, one juror interviewed here provides insider commentary on the hung jury that resulted in a mistrial; not surprisingly, she wrote a book about her experience. Another juror received a painting from Lyle, which he sent her from prison. As I see it, such commentary functions in two ways: One, the air of sensationalism undermines the doc’s credibility. It also paints a portrait of a toxic culture where others capitalize in the wake of ugly misdeeds and the suffering of others.

The final stretch of the doc paints the brothers’ experience as a sob story in which they were separated for more than 20 years, but eventually reunited in prison; it features multiple still photos of Erik and Lyle smiling and looking happy while they talk about the sexual-abuse awareness movement, and the positive strides they’ve made as people. Should this be accepted with warmth or skepticism? Insisting on one or the other, and forming an unwavering opinion on the Menendez story seems unwise – and hey, guess what, nobody’s obligated to have one.

This seems to be a many-things-can-be-true-all-at-once situation where multiple legitimate questions spring from this thorny and complicated story: Was the trial that convicted them fair? (Doesn’t seem like it.) Are they murderers? (Yes. They admit as much.) Should we believe that they were abused? (Their testimony seems earnest.) Were they justified in their actions? (Premeditated murder should never be an option.) Do abuse victims deserve to have a voice? (Absolutely.) Is this story too morally fraught to be tried in the court of public opinion? (Yes.) Do the Menendez brothers deserve to have a documentary advocate for them? (I don’t know – but this one does a so-so job at best on their behalf.)

Our Call: The Menendez Brothers is ultimately too much of a messy op-ed than legitimate journalism. SKIP IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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