The documentary Tread came out on Netflix recently (it was released in 2019 and was unwatched in my rental list for ages). I gave it a watch (finally) and was a little disappointed but I can maybe recommend it if the crazy real life story interests you.
Tread is a documentary dramatized retelling of a small town man fed up with local politics. He buys a bulldozer and uses his welding skills to turn it into a tank complete with protected televised view and gun ports. Taking revenge on the businesses of the townsfolk who done him wrong, he smashes up the town, taking shots at cops and slamming into buildings that house children.
This happened back in 2004 and was big news for 24 hours before Ronald Reagan died and ate the news cycle. I don’t remember this happening but apparently it did. The documentary uses a ton of re-enactments – including their rebuilt bulldozer tank – and a little archival footage plus interviews. And the guy in the tank’s taped confessions and justifications prior to his rampage. The only problem is that there’s so many re-enactments, it’s hard to say how much is truly factual or accurate.
And, besides that, there’s the little issue that there’s only so much drama you can get over zoning disputes and the petty politics of small town America. Especially when there’s two sides to every squabble and bickering point. It’s good they showed both sides and didn’t put the crazy guy in the bulldozer on a little-guy-versus-the-man pedestal or completely turn the town council into complete villains.
It’s a decent documentary that you might enjoy if the Falling Down-like storyline interests you. But in a reverse of a lot of “based on a true story” movies where you ask if a documentary of this story would be better than the fictionalized account, this movie made me think it would be a better drama than documentary. I think it would have… or at least it might have been a better short subject documentary. There’s just a few too many minutes of talking heads discussing town politics to be really interesting (or, at least, in terms of how its presented here).
Score: 76