It's been nearly 16 years since voters in California passed Proposition 215, starting a social and political phenomenon that has spread across the country. But that didn't stop the federal government under Bush and then Obama from targeting Charlie Lynch. In a powerfully rendered documentary, Lynching Charlie Lynch, award-winning filmmaker, writer, and producer Rick Ray manages to illuminate the human reality (and the inhuman idiocy) of the war on medical marijuana distributors.
Through interviews with Lynch, his neighbors, his landlord, and local attorneys and politicians, interspersed with TV news accounts and surveillance videos, Ray portrays a socially awkward straight arrow of a man, whose most serious offense before founding the Central Coast Compassion Center was a speeding ticket. Along the way, Ray talks to researchers and even representatives of the other side.
Lynch may be appealing, but what happened to him at the hands of his own government is appalling. Rick Ray deserves major credit for bringing his compelling story to the screen with grace, tenderness, and just the right touch of righteous indignation.
Read our full review of Lynching Charlie Lynch here.
