Review: 'Who Shot the Sheriff?'

I'm pretty sure a lot of people have watched this documentary and reviewed it as well, but as I'm reviewing the Remastered series—I feel like I should review this one as well.

Of course, we all know who Bob Marley was. He was a musician, an activist, and an incredible singer. He has some of the most well-known songs in all of Reggae history, and has since his death, become a cultural icon of peace, freedom, and togetherness.

The Netflix series Remastered deals with the cultural and musical history of certain iconic figures such as Johnny Cash, Sam Cooke, and Robert Johnson etc. The documentaries are made in an iconic and modern way with each director of each show bringing some new aspect of filmmaking to the table.

We're going to do this in a similar way to my reviews on The Two Killings of Sam Cooke and Devil at the Crossroads, and first, go through the storyline and summary, finishing off with my opinions. We'll draw it to a conclusion afterwards.

Summary and Overview

As the title suggests, this show deals with the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in 1976 with the upcoming concert for the benefit of Jamaica. With the political turmoil in Jamaica on the rise, Bob Marley is becoming a figurehead of the new peace movement. In a land of gang violence and mob-led elections, this simply isn't allowed, and thus they tried to get rid of him. Fortunately enough, it didn't work and Bob Marley survived.

The show begins with an introduction to the shooting in the year of 1976 (since Marley was shot towards the end of the year) looking at how Bob Marley made a huge impact on the cultural movement, and the freedom of Jamaica leading up to then. The good thing about this is that it doesn't go through too much of the musical side, instead it looks at him as a figurehead and activist who is making changes during the turbulent times.

It gives us interviews by historians, and people who knew him personally, addressed as his "friends" and associates in the show. It also gives us taped interviews from Bob Marley himself in order to get his messages across. There's a lot of footage of Bob Marley's concerts and reconstructions of various points in his life. There's also news footage of Jamaica during the elections of 1976, and the gang rule of certain parts of the country.

This Netflix show investigates the different theories surrounding the shooting of Bob Marley, and after introducing all the historical aspects of the assassination attempts, comes to a conclusion that Bob Marley knew very much, so he was going to be shot.

My Opinions

I found this documentary to not only be thoroughly interesting, but very well made.

The first thing I can say was really good is that they had this small introduction to the shooting before the documentary through interviews with others. This made the footage quite interesting to watch, because apart from Bob Marley, it shows you who else was there at the time when it pops up in the documentary.

Another thing I enjoyed was the reconstruction of the shooting. There were good cuts between the interviews and the reconstruction. This gave a really good visual aspect to the documentary, and, after the historical context of the election and the footage of the turbulence in Jamaica, it made for a better viewing experience, and more of a clear story.

A great thing I found about this documentary is that it incorporated the footage of live shows in with the interviews and the tapings of Bob Marley speaking himself very well. There was no need for narration, and therefore the entire story is told by those who knew him and historians who have been researching him.

Conclusion

This is one of my favourites of the series, because of the fact it's slightly more modern than the ages of Sam Cooke, Robert Johnson, and Johnny Cash etc. The footage on Bob Marley is of better quality, and there are more interviews and people alive who knew him personally. I really enjoyed looking into the different theories of different people who were either there when the shooting happened, or had researched it, read about it in the news, or even actually knew Bob Marley from different countries.

All in all, I had a great time watching this documentary, and I hope Netflix gets round to making some more!