‘Dickweed’ Review – Documentary Shocks With Wild Story And Solid Craft [SXSW 2024]

Dickweed’s premise is about as intriguing as one gets: two people get kidnapped in a heist, one of which is a man who loses his, well, it’s in the name, and in the end, nobody gets any money anyway. The documentary/narrative recreation hybrid tells the story of the detective who unraveled the case, thread by painful thread. Dickweed is a stellar documentary, teeming with tactful filmmaking and reverent retelling, never once losing step with the manic premise that precedes it. It’s a striking accomplishment in a genre of filmmaking that often goes unrecognized.

Though not quite as narratively focused, this shares a similar sense of fluent recreation with American Animals (2018), which tells a similar, albeit less savage, story in perhaps the most memorable manner a documentary of this kind ever has. Dickweed puts a heavier focus on the interviews and real-life testimonies of those involved, but the way that the narrative sequences are woven in is seamless, and a total blast. It jumps from interview to filmed scene with exquisite ease, allowing the unbelievable tale to flow between realities and maintain an engrossing pace, despite how much time you’ll spend just listening to people talk.

Director Jonathan Ignatius Green does a great job in maintaining a consistent tone despite the constant cutting and shifting, aided by a shaded style in the narrative sequences that tell the story in a cinematic fashion without pulling too far from the interviews. This isn’t his first foray into the documentary division, with the critically acclaimed Social Animals (2018) as well as the more recent Bitconned, which hit Netflix earlier this year. His expertise shines through in yet another excellent turn in the genre with Dickweed.

The manner in which the story unfolds in this retelling borrows from a traditional narrative structure, saving details for relevant moments of shock and utilizing pauses and black screens to facilitate the drama to the fullest extent. It’s a documentary that takes the twists and turns of the real event and bakes them in; you’re likely hearing this story for the first time, and even if it isn’t in a fictionally retold format, why strip it of the inherent surprise factor? The team behind Dickweed clearly understood this, and so the documentary excels in this way, too. It’s an unexpectedly thrilling ride.

Furthering the grounded feeling of the film is the nature of the interviews, in which the subjects spare no detail, including their own personal feelings about the events, people, and details involved. There are multiple moments in which interviewees trail off and open up beyond their checklist of memories; it may have added a few minutes to the runtime, but the outcome is priceless. These are people, some of whom endured a tragedy, some worked to bring justice to it, and others were directly involved in it. Everyone who can gets a chance to speak, and so the story is layered from every conceivable angle, filling in the gaps in a way that even a cinematic retelling may have failed. Again, Ignatius’ expertise in structuring and carrying out a story in this style stands out.

Dickweed is a rock-solid documentary in all parts. The unimaginable true story that serves as the nexus is attention-grabbing enough, but it’s what the filmmakers do with it in this genre specifically that makes this effort stand out. It goes beyond simply relaying the happenings in an objective drone; this is an efficiently stylized and impassioned, collaborative effort between artists and those involved in the actual account. Dickweed is a sure SXSW highlight, and one of the year’s first real must-sees beyond the big screen.

Dickweed had its World Premiere at SXSW 2024 in the Documentary Spotlight section. 

Director: Jonathan Ignatius Green

Rated: NR

Runtime: 90m