You can’t deny Netflix’s documentaries tackle diverse issues affecting Latinos, whether that’s the corruption scandal in Brazil with The Edge of Democracy or sports superstar Diego Maradona coaching a Mexican soccer team. Now, they’re taking their ripped from the headlines approach to dissect the violence and scandal of disgraced football player Aaron Hernandez.
The 2-minute trailer aims to attract those who don’t know about Hernandez and those who do. “No one has allegedly murdered two people and then played an entire season as a professional athlete,” an off-screen talking head starts off. Hernandez’s life is briefly laid out, with early footage of him as a football player at Bristol Central High School. Two halves of Hernandez are played up, the kindhearted high schooler who “wouldn’t pick on other kids” and the “ticking time bomb” who grew up in a house filled with domestic violence.
Hernandez would eventually receive a $40 million contract to play for the New England Patriots and it is then that the “why of the story” starts to develop. The documentary series looks heavily inspired by other popular crime stories on the streaming service, and is in fact brought to us by the creators of Evil Genius and Making a Murderer. Sharp, fast violin music shows us Hernandez as he deteriorates into living in a “flophouse,” consuming drugs and alcohol before eventually murdering his brother-in-law, Odin Lloyd, and allegedly killing two others (though he would be acquitted on the latter charges). Were his actions the result of a violent home? “Concussion-related injuries?” Or something else?
The trailer’s production gives off a one-size-fits-all structure to these Netflix documentaries, but there’s no doubt that Hernandez’s story looks interesting. Even if you didn’t follow the story when Hernandez was on trial it’s a fascinating and multilayered tale.
Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez debuts January 15, 2020, on Netflix.