Jason C
Reviewer

      Arnold and David Friedman were a normal father and son pair. Arnold won teaching awards for his scientific prowess at a Long Island school. David worked as a party clown and was a model student. That all changed when both men were accused of taking turns raping young boys in their basement.
 
     Watching “Capturing the Friedmans” isn't like watching any other documentary. It doesn't just show you what's going on with the Friedman family. Instead, it throws viewers into a gripping tale of family destruction that feels no different than watching a semi crash into cars on an expressway. You know everything is going to fall apart into total disaster, but you can't do anything but sit and watch it all unfold.
 
     No one would have guessed that the brown paper-covered packages that would enter the home and go directly to Arnold's office were filled with child pornography. And when the child pornography and child molestation charges start to surface, the community is rightfully outraged, making viewers wonder if their own neighbors could be hiding secrets as dark as the Friedmans' or worse, even darker ones.
 
     Director Andrew Jarecki's masterpiece cuts close to the family because it didn't start out as a documentary about child molestation. He began filming a short about the party entertainment group where David served as Top Clown. But then David began to lead Jarecki into his family life by hinting at a dark secret that would soon be exposed to the community.
 
     More than a family portrait, “Capturing the Friedmans” serves as a mystery of epic proportions: Was Arnold a man who enjoyed child pornography but would never act on those pedophiliac impulses? (He does admit to commiting a lewd act with a child, but never admitted to doing anything with the boys who took his computer class.) Viewers will be angry when hearing stories of how the young boys were sodomized in the dark basement, but viewers will be even angrier as the film comes to a close without providing any answers.
 
     By its very nature, film is a subjective art. Jarecki could have omitted views on either side of guilt or innocence to lead viewers to a definite conclusion. But he refuses to make it easy. Jarecki allows contradictory interviews to smack together, as if to remind viewers that nothing has been completely settled.
 
     When one policeman explains how the computer classes were a free-for-all of pedophilia, a young boy (a supposed victim) explains that he only said what he thought police wanted to hear and that he takes back any claim that he was anally raped by Mr. Friedman.
 
     However sick it is, voyeurism is fascinating. In less than two hours, viewers will have seen into the secret lives of an American family and have heard about the atrocities that could have been committed. They have entered a dark chapter of American suburbia that cuts deeper than “American Beauty” with its "Look closer" tagline ever could. That is because whether Arnold Friedman raped young boys, whether David Friedman raped his own brother or whether it's all just made up, it's really happening. This is America at its most disgusting and filmmaking at its most brilliant.