Documentary shines light on West Memphis Three

THE CELEBRATED case of the so-called West Memphis Three is surely the most documented in recent history - in fact, there are now more movies than defendants.

Amy Berg's "West of Memphis" is the fourth documentary about the young Arkansas men jailed for the horrific murder of three 8-year-old boys, found hog-tied and naked in a drainage ditch in Paradise Hills, Ark., back in the 1990s.

The documentary saga started in 1996, when "Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills" first cast doubt on the conviction of local teen Damien Echols and two others - cops liked Echols for the crime because he dabbled in witchcraft, and the nation at the time was swept up in mass hysteria over devil-worshipping care centers, spawning a cottage industry of devil-cult "experts," and callow prosecutors looking for headlines.

Local police (with a self-appointed "expert" of their own) coerced a confession from Echols' mentally challenged friend - the audio of this interrogation should be heard by anyone who doesn't understand why innocent people confess to crimes.

The poor fellow's ordeal will also be strikingly familiar to anyone who's seen another recent miscarriage-of-justice doc, "Central Park Five."

There, the NYPD wrongly arrested and jailed five black and Latino teens for the assault on the so-called Central Park Jogger, beaten senseless and left for dead by a rapist.

"Five" argued that racism and bias figured in the justice system, and that is no doubt true. But the movie, stacked alongside "West of Memphis," reveals another theme - a creepy consistency of flaws in urban justice systems for minorities, and in rural justice systems for poor whites.

The movies show how particularly horrific/public crimes demand a compensatory response. Harried cops (some also lazy and incompetent) scramble to find the guilty. Failing that, they find somebody convictable and build a case that sticks. (In both movies, the kids are poor, parents afraid, the police single out a vulnerable, developmentally challenged teen).

There is a larger, sinister implication. Cops and prosecutors get away with this because they're giving the public what it wants. There is, after a sensational crime, a communal unease that does not dissipate until someone - anyone - is held accountable. "Central Park Five," for instance, is chilling for the way it shows how friends and family of the accused go along with the process, grimly resigned to the sense that punishment must always balance crime.

"West of Memphis" hints at this, but can't afford to linger in the abstract. Berg's priority has to be her thorough, workmanlike job of laying facts that show the blundering and butt-covering of police and state prosecutors, and also the way the Arkansas legal system is stacked against the rights of the accused.

It adds up (along with Berg's ideas about the real killer) to a 150-minute marathon, and because of that, you may begin to resent the testimonials of celebrities who took up the cause. Eddie Vedder, Henry Rollins, Natalie Maines, Johnny Depp, etc. I don't know that Berg really needs to read back the correspondence (yawn) between Echols' wife and the makers of "The Lord of the Rings."

At the same time, these folks were instrumental in funding investigations and the defense of the three wrongly imprisoned men.

By all means, take a bow.

Just make it quick.