They Called Him Mostly Harmless

2024

1 hr. 29 min.

Documentary

Crime

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List

63%

8 Reviews

Tomatometer

58%

50+ Ratings

Audience Score

When an unidentified hiker is found deceased in the Florida wilderness, authorities release a sketch. Multiple hikers call in claiming to have met the man. There's only one problem – he never told them his name. It would take two years, thousands of devoted internet sleuths, and a miracle of science to identify him, and that's when the trouble really starts. A character-centric reimagining of a classic true crime genre, THEY CALLED HIM MOSTLY HARMLESS is about finding yourself when you’re looking for someone else.

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C H

The amount of time people spent speculating, arguing, accusing, insulting, and infighting about someone who made every effort to stay off the radar and then died mysteriously really baffles me. If there was concern about his whereabouts there would have been nationwide missing person reports. There didn't seem to be a concern that someone was targeting hikers but rather just an insatiable, odd curiosity. If even a portion of the time and money invested in this mystery had gone toward helping the thousands of living people, children, and animals in need, what a great show it would have been.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

04/05/24

Full Review

Marvin W

They Called Him Mostly Harmless was a refreshing take on true crime documentaries. I loved that Director Patricia Gillespie made the decision to focus on sleuths in this film. Worth the watch!

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

03/25/24

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Jamie B

Absolutely horrible, every person interviewed was the most hateable person I've ever seen. And the ending is horrible, everything about this movie was terrible and I can't believe I somehow watched to the end to continuously be disappointed.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

03/13/24

Full Review

Austin S

It starts off as a compelling true crime investigation. But the intrigue is quickly subverted by focusing on a couple self-important, internet-sleuthing bitter Betty's and their Facebook drama. And subsequently turns into a sort of smear campaign followed by an attempt at absolving him due to assumed mental health problems. Some really weird and unbecoming choices made to try and tell the story of a guy that we, and everyone involved, still know very little about…

Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars

03/12/24

Full Review

Megan E

Starts off strong, but quickly devolves into a reality-TV-esque argument between the leaders of rival Facebook groups. And the "twist" wasn't really a twist at all.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

03/10/24

Full Review

Sam D

A refreshing twist on the true crime genre, fascinating story with amazing characters. Great watch!

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

03/06/24

Full Review

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Beatrice Loayza

New York Times

This artless documentary, composed primarily of interviews and B-roll footage (of walks along the trail from a first-person perspective; the amateur detectives looking at their computers, brows furrowed), mechanically pieces together the mystery.

Feb 8, 2024

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Nick Schager

The Daily Beast

Such fraught push-pull dynamics are everywhere in this HBO doc, whose mystery took years to solve and whose revelations underlined that real-world narratives don’t always conform to fiction-inspired expectations.

Feb 6, 2024

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John Serba

Decider

Gillespie is a skilled interviewer who’s capable of humanizing her subjects and capturing some of the more offbeat elements of their character.

Feb 29, 2024

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Alison Lanier

Pajiba

On the surface, judging by the streaming service thumbnail and catchy synopsis, They Called Him Mostly Harmless appears like any other sensational procedural true crime saga about discovering the truth behind a baffling mystery. But it certainly isn’t.

Feb 21, 2024

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Stephen Silver

The SS Ben Hecht

A film as unwieldy and disjointed as its title. I didn't care about the sleuths, who seemed genuinely disturbed and hostile, and wish the documentary hadn’t spent nearly as much time with them.

Rated: 2/5

Feb 15, 2024

Full Review

Eric Langberg

Everything's Interesting

It all adds up to a pretty damning portrait of true crime fandom, if not the genre itself.

Feb 14, 2024

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Synopsis

When an unidentified hiker is found deceased in the Florida wilderness, authorities release a sketch. Multiple hikers call in claiming to have met the man. There's only one problem – he never told them his name. It would take two years, thousands of devoted internet sleuths, and a miracle of science to identify him, and that's when the trouble really starts. A character-centric reimagining of a classic true crime genre, THEY CALLED HIM MOSTLY HARMLESS is about finding yourself when you’re looking for someone else.

Director: Patricia E. Gillespie
Executive Producer: Patricia E. Gillespie, Eric Cook
Distributor: Max
Production Co: Anchor Entertainment
Genre: Documentary, Crime
Original Language: English
Release Date (Streaming): Feb 8, 2024

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