The Subterranean: ‘Flint Town’ is just a cop opera

by Walter G. Tarrow

An overlong, tiresome, ultimately pointless episode of “Cops”

A **1/2 review of the documentary series “Flint Town” showing exclusively on Netflix

A documentary film, as opposed to a work of fiction, purports to give us the truth. And a good documentary exposes truth through a presentation of facts, and often opinions about those facts, leading us on a journey of discovery, revelation, and illumination. We should expect to know more, to feel more, to have our perceptions and beliefs expanded, enriched and even challenged.

“Flint Town” fails in those regards. Over the course of 5 1/2 hours, the documentary touches, much, much too lightly, on the crises of the urban tragedy that is Flint, Michigan. The lead poisoned water supply, the rampant violent crime, the failures of police unable to respond effectively to, and in conflict with, an impoverished and at-risk community, the duplicity of seemingly self-serving local and state officials.

All of these issues are touched on all too superficially in sacrifice to the tired trope of ride alongs in pursuit of the bad boys and first person interviews with the individual cops themselves. As one rookie states, the media view of police work is foot and car chases, while, in reality, it’s much more a community affair.

Unfortunately, though there are enough foot and car chases, to paraphrase Alfred Hitchcock, this docudrama is life with the dull bits put back in. Instead of any meaningful or in-depth insights or truths about the water, the crime, the police, the tortured city of Flint, we are given a travelogue with pretty aerial shots of fall colors, water flowing and tree lined streets, thrilling orange hued nights of “Cops” stopping crime, and cinema vérité camerawork. Lacking is the investigative aspect which has been lazily relegated to copious news footage and interviews with local news reporters.

And, as if, in the context of the truly disturbing state of affairs that is the poisoned Flint, we instead need to be part of the romance between two cops, their Mexico vacation and their moving into a new home.

Often the film plays like an infomercial for the Flint police force. Because of severe understaffing, much of the film deals with the force’s need to recruit. And, in service to that need, we are forced to listen to the chief’s seemingly endless politicized promotion of his methods and appeals for funds and community support.

Ultimately, the film left me, not much wiser, but wanting to fill in the blanks left vacant by the filmmakers.

From Wikipedia: “As of early 2017, the water quality had returned to acceptable levels; however, residents were instructed to continue to use bottled or filtered water until all the lead pipes have been replaced, which is expected to be completed no sooner than 2020.”

From MLive.com, Sept. 28, 2017: “Flint had the ninth-highest rate of violent crime with nearly 792 violent crimes reported per 50,000 residents, according to the FBI data released earlier this week.”