3 1/2 Minutes, 10 Bullets

Director: Marc Silver

On the day after Thanksgiving 2012, a black teen named Jordan Davis and three friends pulled into a convenience store in Jacksonville, Florida for cigarettes and chewing gum. While one of the friends entered the store, the three other sat in the SUV, listening to blaring rap music. Meanwhile, a car pulled up next to the vehicle and shortly thereafter, the driver; a white man named Michael Dunn, became incensed with the loud music. He asked the black teens to turn down their music and after two of the boys complied, Davis defiantly turned the music back up. According to Dunn, Davis became abusive and eventually threatened to kill him. Dunn claimed he saw a gun barrel poking out from the rear passenger window, at which time he pulled a handgun from his glove compartment. He shot several times at the SUV as the driver, Tommie Stornes, desperately tried to pull away. Dunn said he continued firing until he no longer felt threatened. While Dunn waited for his wife to return, the young black boys in the SUV tended to Jordan, who they realized had sustained several gunshots to his body. As Jordan lay dying, Dunn was taken into custody. Invoking Florida's controversial Stand Your Ground Law, Dunn claimed he was threatened with violence and feared for his life. The teens who survived the encounter; Stornes, Tevin Thompson and Leland Brunson, don't deny Jordan was out of line and had a "big mouth," but they say Dunn's response was extreme and unnecessary and was motivated by racist sentiments.

The story and the case are the subject of Director Marc Silver's stirring new documentary 3 and 1/2 Minutes, 10 Bullets; a film that reaches for objectivity as it allows both sides its version of the events.

Silver's film isn't a talking head documentary, though we do hear commentary from Jordan's parents: Ron Davis and Lucia McBath, and the surviving members of the slain teen's group of friends. Dunn's version of events comes to us by way of his court testimony as well as recorded phone conversations with his fiancee, Rhonda Rouer. Silver also uses footage of Dunn in police custody to supplement his court testimony.

Though Dunn and his actions are subject to prosecution, it's clear the Stand Your Ground Law could just as easily be on the stand for its nebulous definition justifiable self-defense.

In the early part of the film, it's hard to square Dunn with the shooting. His timid, speaking voice is at odds with his violent act. This impression is further strengthened in trial testimony, when Dunn and his girlfriend both shed tears on the stand. What they might be sobbing about is anybody's guess because we never hear a word of remorse spill out of his or his fiancee's mouths.

In early trial testimony, Dunn's claims of self-defense seem reasonable and plausible but as the trial progresses, his version of events become shaky. Though he says a gun was pointed at him, none were found at the crime scene though his lawyer posits a theory that the weapon could have been flung from the vehicle as the boys fled from the scene in the SUV. It also becomes known that he never mentioned a gun of any kind to his fiancee.

Weakening Dunn's accusation that the four boys were thugs (we learn thugs is now a euphemism for "nigger") are Silver's conversations with Jordan's friends. Far from being products of broken homes and violent backgrounds, we see Stornes, Thompson and Brunson in their comfortable, suburban surroundings as they share memories of their friend. We also see they are anything but the hard-hearted killers Dunn would have the defense lawyer, the judge, the jury and his fiancee believe them to be. The audience is able to gather, from conversations with the teens and Jordan's father, that they are of one mind about Dunn's actions being related to his racist attitudes. In spite of Dunn's claims that he isn't racist, his biases slowly emerge in recorded conversations with his wife. The viewer might ask his or herself: would Dunn have pulled a gun on four white youths?

Ron Davis shares a disquieting exchange he had with the father of Trayvon Martin (another Stand Your Ground victim), who phoned Davis to tell him he is now a member of a club no one wants to belong to.

As the possibility of Dunn being set free becomes a distinct possibility, we hear the most powerful and damning testimony come not from Jordan's friends but from Dunn's fiancee Rhonda. When the prosecuting attorney asks her if Dunn ever mentioned any gun or weapon in Jordan or his friend's possession, she responds in the negative. Her honesty is astonishing, for she (and Dunn) are well aware that her answers will most likely help condemn her fiancee.

As everyone anxiously awaits the jury's verdict, the tension crescendos to some sort of dramatic climax. Given the appalling outcome of George Zimmerman's trial; of which he was acquitted of murder charges in the shooting of Trayvon Martin, Ron and Lucia's pessimism and anxieties seem warranted.

The jury eventually finds Dunn guilty of second degree murder on 4 of the 5 counts; not quite the outcome Jordan's parents had hoped for. The fifth count resulted in a hung jury and a mistrial. After the case was retried, Dunn was found guilty of first degree murder, which carries a mandatory life-sentence.

As a viewer, I understand Ron and Lucia's sense of relief, which is supposed to serve as a satisfying coda to the story and film, but I have to admit I felt the verdict, though just, was a defeat of sorts. Ron and Lucia's only child is gone and the horrific law that gave Dunn a sense of empowerment is still on the books. Both Jordan and Trayvon Martin are dead because a law mid-wived into existence by gun-lobbyists has only given gun-owners unreasonable latitude to interpret what is and what isn't a threat. I couldn't help but think that Jordan would be alive and Dunn would be free if the law didn't exist.

Silver tells this story compellingly; allowing the inherent drama to find full expression on the screen. I think the film could have actually done with fewer scenes of the grieving parents. Tears threaten to sentimentalize the documentary and detract from the honest, brutal reality of the story.

Though the ending feels like a victory for justice, the victorious feeling is tempered by the probability that more Stand Your Ground claimants will be on court dockets in the near future. Whether Dunn's life sentence will deter other gun owners from legally-sanctioned vigilantism remains to be seen.

3 1/2 Minutes, 10 Bullets is a compelling film. It's safe to say its audience will be left-leaning, which means it will play mostly to the lefty choir. But as the Fox News pro-Dunn response shows, consensus on gun-related issues is next to impossible anyway. I'm glad Silver made his film; it's trenchant indictment of a law makes for riveting cinema.