The Bomber and Master Forger Who Tried to Destroy the Mormon Church Nick Schager
There’s no weirder twist in
Murder Among the Mormons than the initial disclosure that this Netflix true crime series (premiering March 3) is co-directed by Jared Hess, the idiosyncratic filmmaker behind
Napoleon Dynamite,
Nacho Libre, and
Gentleman Broncos. That Hess is a Mormon goes some way toward explaining this unlikely marriage of artist and material, which he helms with Tyler Measom. Yet it remains an unexpected venture for the former big-screen comedy wunderkind, who largely neuters his trademark off-the-wall comedy style for a straightforward recap of a story rooted in deception.
In the wake of Cheer’s success, it was inevitable that Netflix would go searching for the next big inspiring sports docuseries. On the surface, We Are: The Brooklyn Saints fits that bill, charting the ups-and-downs of charismatic players and coaches involved with a Brooklyn youth football program. Unfortunately, however, surface is primarily what you get from director Rudy Valdez and executive producers Ron Howard and Brian Grazer’s four-part.