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They Called Him Mostly Harmless

Play trailer 1:51 Poster for They Called Him Mostly Harmless 2024 1h 29m Documentary Crime Play Trailer Watchlist
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63% Tomatometer 8 Reviews 58% Popcornmeter 100+ Ratings
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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They Called Him Mostly Harmless

Critics Reviews

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Beatrice Loayza New York Times 02/08/2024
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. Go to Full Review
Nick Schager The Daily Beast 02/06/2024
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. Go to Full Review
John Serba Decider 02/29/2024
Gillespie is a skilled interviewer who’s capable of humanizing her subjects and capturing some of the more offbeat elements of their character. Go to Full Review
Alison Lanier Pajiba 02/21/2024
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. Go to Full Review
Stephen Silver The SS Ben Hecht 02/15/2024
2/5
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. Go to Full Review
Eric Langberg Everything's Interesting 02/14/2024
It all adds up to a pretty damning portrait of true crime fandom, if not the genre itself. Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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Ashton H 05/22/2024 I think people rating this went into it with a preconceived notion about what it was going to be about. Frankly, in the age of social media, this documentary is very telling about online detectives and sleuths. We are more connected now through than Internet than ever before and yet we truly don't know each other or treat each other like humans. See more C H 04/05/2024 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. See more Marvin W 03/25/2024 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! See more Jamie B 03/13/2024 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. See more Austin S 03/12/2024 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… See more Megan E @mcxanthus 03/10/2024 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. See more Read all reviews
They Called Him Mostly Harmless

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Movie Info

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
Producer
Ethan Goldman, Danielle Franco, Amy Brown, Keayr Braxton, Nicholas Thompson
Distributor
Max
Production Co
Investigation Discovery, Anchor Entertainment
Genre
Documentary, Crime
Original Language
English
Release Date (Streaming)
Feb 8, 2024
Runtime
1h 29m
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