Off the Rails

source: Off the Rails

Guy with a mental disability but otherwise seems like a bright, intelligent, decent guy spends at least half of his life in prison (so far) because he loves trains and buses. He basically just walks up to to a train or bus and then drives it on it´s normal route. Obviously, this can´t be allowed but for goodness sake if they had just hired him in the first place then this whole awful mess could have been avoided. If they were unable to give him a job, they could have given him a volunteers post on any of the thousands of local rail or road transport systems or museums. If they could not do that then they could have invested the several hundred thousand dollars spent on trials and imprisonment and spent a fraction of that on therapy instead. There are so many healthy options for him if people would just look beyond ¨this is a problem, how can I lock him up for the most amount of time¨ He was converted to Islam while in prison. He was told after leaving his last prison sentence that the next time he gets caught, he is up for a mandatory sentence of 15 years to life. Well, he got caught doing it again and took a plea bargain. He is now in a psychiatric hospital for an indefinite amount of time. He could be in there for the rest of his life. It´s not the most balanced of documentaries, I can´t help but feel that there is more to this story that is not being included in the documentary. For example, I was curious what had happened to him since the end of the film was made and found out that he has been repeatedly offered this please deal but has refused it as he had bad experiences with drug treatment in the past. They put him on some mind bending medication that turned him into a drooling vegetable so he avoided it and preferred to just go to prison where he would at least have control of his faculties. If you do a bit of research on this, it become clear that the film takes a very one sided approach to telling his story and it is the responsibility of documentary film makers to be honest and consider all angles when ¨documenting¨ a story. It is not up to the documentary film maker to create the story that they want to tell, they have to tell the story as it is. Otherwise it is not a documentary. I have huge sympathy the subject of the film and he is the star of the film but the actual production is clumsy and for the reason outlined above, I don´t like what they did with the story.

Very interesting documentary about a unique and (to me at least) unknown subject - perfect film for when you're in the mood for getting sucked in to something real, quirky, homespun, and deftly complex. Incredibly well made film that moves well, takes you on a journey with Darius with a great ending! Wishing the best for Darius and his family; never has a serial criminal been so likable.

Indianapolis, October 26, 2016: Whenever I watch a documentary that grab my emotions, I suspect propaganda. Off the Rails, the story of Darius McCollum's lifelong battle with Asberger's, is such a story. Darius was bullied as a kid in New York's schools, actually being stabbed at the age of twelve. After that, he retreated into "things more than people," finding solace in the subway system, where he absorbed everything he could about how the trains worked. He learned enthusiastically from the MTA employees, who were more than happy to share their knowledge with such a bright kid. He even rode along in the cab, learning all about the trains as he went, to the point where some of the pilots allowed him to actually take the controls a few times. He was so good, in fact, that one pilot actually put 15-year-old Darius in charge of his train, while the older man visited his girlfriend. He ran the route, picking up and dropping off passengers, following all signals – a perfect ride to the World Trade Center. When Darius was later spotted by a passenger and the Transit Police picked him up, his life's path seemed set. So, Darius applied to work for the MTA when he was seventeen – too young – and he was rejected. When he reapplied at eighteen, he was rejected again. Through his life, he has tried to legitimately wear one of the several uniforms he stole over the years, but as his felonies piled up, his chances of landing a job with the MTA fell to zero. Had circumstances been different, who knows what could have happened? Maybe he could have become a student of the MTA, taken under its wing and integrated into the culture that fascinated him. Maybe the police could have merely called his folks. Maybe… But that isn't what happened. Darius went into the system, never to really exit. Decades later, after he had served multiple prison terms and his parents moved to North Carolina, he was forced, as a parolee, to remain in New York. Without a job, support, or anything different in his life, he stole another bus, and went again to prison. Darius has been arrested nearly thirty times for crimes related to his obsession – trespassing on MTA property, theft of vehicles, transporting passengers without endorsements, reckless endangerment -- and is currently awaiting trial in New York, for driving off in a Greyhound bus. As a multiple, habitual recidivist, he faces a 15 years to life sentence. But this is also a story of how those with power love to exercise it, a story of how closed-mindedness can ruin potential; and how habits are hard to break. Darius has found peace in his life only when he's involved with transit – he, implied in the film, has never injured a passenger or damaged equipment; he's never, apparently, even missed a stop. He has walked picket lines with the Transit Workers Union members, though he has never worked for the MTA, or for any other transit-related business. Even with what had by then become a lengthy criminal record, Darius tried to get near his beloved trains. He volunteered at the Transit Museum, but soon was dismissed after an unidentified patron recognized him and complained. He had a crooked "celebrity" lawyer early in his criminal career, and wound up in prison, a lot. When a dedicated new lawyer tried her best to explain Asperger's to the judge, the jurist thwarted that tactic, saying she (the judge) had Googled Asperger's, and Darius didn't fit the classic symptoms. Through the movie, we're treated to a vision of Darius as a victim of everything and everyone – his Asperger's, the system, his lawyers, the judge, mean MTA officials, a nasty District Attorney. Never, except for a brief clip of a letter from his mother, does the responsibility for taking over some self-admitted 500 buses and trains enter the picture on the other side of the ledger. While Off the Rails is a compelling story of a sympathetic subject, a look at that ledger may raise my eyebrow.

I saw Off the Rails last night at the Provincetown International Film Festival. Adam Irving does an amazing job in his directorial debut, telling the story of Darius McCollum, a man obsessed with the New York subway system, and how our "justice" system has failed him. I had heard of McCollum through the news. He has been stealing trains for two-thirds of his life and has served multiple terms in prison for his crimes. This was clearly a passion project for Irving, who not only directed and cinematographed (yes, that is a word) but also, along with Tchavdar Georgiev, wrote, edited, and produced the film. Irving and Georgiev look not only at McCollum's "adventures," but also his backstory and how inadequately the judiciary handles unique individuals like Darius. At various points in the film, all of us would groan in unified exasperation, and near the end, when no resolution seems to be forthcoming, some people in the audience vented their frustration by offering advice to Darius and his advocates on the screen. Some also made it very clear how they felt about his detractors. To go any deeper might diminish the affect of Darius's story, so I'll leave it at that. Because my work hours overlap with the Film Festival's hours, chances are this will be the only PIFF movie I'll be able to see this year. From what I've been hearing, the films this year have been particularly good, but if I am only able to see one of them I'm very glad I chose this one.

I got tired of hearing Darius' excuses so I turned off this doc after about 45 min. What I learned in that time is that Darius is being enabled by his "therapists" who seek to excuse his behavior and deflect it toward the justice system, his alleged Asperger's, and everything else except Darius' own personal responsibility. All the therapists, social workers, advocates, and psychoanalysts interviewed shared the same trait: educated, yet relentlessly stupid when analyzing behavior. One of them even suggested that the solution to Darius' problem is for the NYC MTA to hire him on. Rewarding criminal behavior is certainly not the answer. Darius is a smart guy and is using his alleged Aspergers to gain sympathy for his continued criminal behavior. I applaud the judge who saw right through his BS and sentenced him to jail which is where he belongs. Ronald Reagan said it best when he proclaimed that "we must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions." Darius broke the law several times and endangered countless people with his antics. He alone is responsible for his actions and jail is where he needs to be. People are safer when Darius is incarcerated.

This is a one-note, sporadically interesting, often quite boring documentary of no particular distinction, cinematic or otherwise. It's about a guy who is familiar to most New Yorkers - he made a career out of dressing up in a transit worker's uniform and commandeering various trains and buses for wild rides through the city, leading to his prompt arrest and incarceration. Rinse and repeat - over and over and over again, until he wound up spending most of his life in prison. There are the usual talking heads bemoaning the failures of the justice system blah blah blah - but there seems to be little interest in getting to the motivation behind the repeated crimes. In place of that, we are told again and again that Darius, the culprit, suffers from Asperger's Syndrome. Exactly how that was determined, and who determined it, is never addressed. I have my own theory about what Darius suffers from. I think it is A**holeberger's Syndrome. He seems intelligent enough, and nothing in his affect suggests any particular emotional deficit. But he clearly gets a big thrill, possibly a somewhat sexual thrill, out of posing as a transit worker and making off with trains and buses, often filled with unsuspecting New Yorkers on their way to work or wherever. So I'm not sure what the authorities are supposed to do with people like Darius, other than institutionalize them somewhere so they cannot pose a threat to men, women and children going about their lives in a busy metropolis. Some in the documentary suggest simply giving him a job in the transit system. What a great idea! Let's apply the same brilliant logic to people who impersonate doctors or police officers. I'm not usually much of a hard liner but this is one instance where I think we are better off holding the perpetrator to account than our entire legal and social services system. Despite the documentary's attempts to portray Darius as a sympathetic character, I found myself disliking him more and more as he committed crime after crime upon release from prison. And because he is basically repeating the same selfish behavior over and over again, he really isn't much of a subject for a documentary either. Ultimately, Darius - and this film about him - are simply dreadful bores.

Off the Rails