Difficult to believe it was almost eight years ago that David Koresh and his followers died in their Texas compound, and yet we still don't really know what, or who, killed them. This documentary tries to answer some of those questions, and if it doesn't come up with definite answers, neither the FBI nor the other government agencies involved come out smelling of roses. At over 130 minutes, it starts sluggishly, with much footage of congressional committees; the punches only start to land when they begin picking at the official accounts, which rapidly turn out to have more holes than a Florida ballot-paper. The press were deliberately kept away, and unable to see the rear of the compound, and claims that no shots were fired by
government forces don't stand up in the face of damning infra-red aerial footage. We'll probably never know exactly what happened, especially given the amount of "lost" evidence; the Davidians quite possibly were holding illegal weapons, and it may be nothing more sinister than total incompetence. But once you've seen the pictures of children poisoned by hydrogen cyanide (the inevitably lethal result of fire in a room pumped full with CS gas), even the most cynical will have to admit the Branch Davidians didn't deserve that fate.
B
