Louis Theroux has the look of a gangly alien insect, dropped into a Petri dish of human fringe society. As an unassuming confidant and sly commentator on the weirder aspects of our world, he's in a league of his own. His recent forays into grittier territory (African game hunting, maximum-security prisons) were good, but he's increasingly stepping outside of his comfort zone. Law & Disorder In Philadelphia saw the geeky documentary filmmaker patrolling the mean streets with the city's police; where his doe-eyed stares, odd tranquillity, and non-judgmental manners were ill-equipped to scratch beneath the surface of the issues...Philadelphia (or "Killadelphia" as one local termed it) experiences 400 homicides, 10,000 aggravated assaults and 40,000 thefts a year. A flak-jacketed Louis got to patrol the city with police escorts, watching them tackle "corner boys" (low-level drug dealers) and hear from various people caught up in the nightmare -- a prostitute who earns $240 a day (which she blows on 24 bags of heroine), and a young woman whose sister and boyfriend were killed in a drive-by shooting. Unlike the majority of people, she's entered the witness protection scheme and is prepared to testify against the gunmen.
The abiding problem appeared to be a tragic lack of community support and spirit. Everyone is fearful of "snitching" on the criminals that infest their streets, fearing they'll be attacked and killed for speaking out. The worrying thing is, they might be right. You can certainly understand their concerns, when just a screech of tyres have young men running for cover, expecting a hail of bullets to follow from a passing car.
Fear is a powerful weapon, and with nobody willing to help the police identify dealers and murderers, numerous cases go unsolved. You can't help those who don't help themselves. The police/citizen relationship is tenuous at best, although the cops seem to have a maddening degree of respect for the criminals -- flicking them peace sign as they drive by. It seems that both sides are numbed by the horror and accepting of the situation. It's all part of the game. One cop muses that he'll retire one day and be replaced by a younger cop, just like the dealers on the streets will be replaced when they grow old or die. It's a never-ending, generational battle of small victories and failures, having no prevailing effect.
Throughout it all, Louis' actions are restrained for safety reasons -- so he sticks close to his cop friends, and was therefore unable to really penetrate the situation. In that respect, the documentary was a big disappointment. It only managed to affirmed our preconceptions of American crime-ridden streets . Thanks to his police escort, none of the witnesses ever opened up to Louis (who looked cold and dazed throughout), although he sometimes chipped away to get at something approaching a truthful answer. Sadly, it was usually about trivial matters, like the price of a diamond necklace worn by an obese, ginger-bearded drug lord known as "Reds".
Still, the picture painted was chilly and vivid: blood-smeared, empty houses used for drug deals, a death on the street where the witnesses fell silent about seeing anything, icky blood splodges on a playground's asphalt after a shooting, etc. Most things could only be shown after the fact, as Louis' team were never "fortunate" enough to find themselves in the midst of a life-threatening situation. There was just the odd hoodlum trying to outrun the cops, being chased and dragged to the floor, where he pleaded his innocence in the face of video evidence to the contrary.
Overall, Law & Disorder In Philadelphia was a reasonably engaging hour that brought an unfamiliar world into British living rooms, but Louis Theroux wasn't the best guide for the subject matter. His gentle style bounced off the hardened criminals and despondent citizens, failing to touch their hearts. Even a simple handshake was out of the question.
I applaud Louis' attempts to explore serious topics, but he looked out of his depth here, and couldn't offer a fresh perspective on the problems (not helped by the fact he was joined at the hip to the Philly P.D.) It may have been to dangerous for a BBC employee to ingratiate himself with the gangs and dealers outright, so maybe that's why Sky1's Ross Kemp On Gangs exists.
Next week: Louis tackles street violence again, this time in South Africa's Johannesburg.
30 November 2008
BBC2, 9pm
