Director: Gareth Johnson
Synopsis: Follows the Mackenzie Shirilla case, a 17-year-old who intentionally crashed her car into a brick wall in Ohio, killing her boyfriend, Dominic Russo and his friend Davion Flanagan. She was convicted of 12 felonies
At this point, Netflix has practically turned true crime into one of its defining genres. From Making a Murderer to The Staircase and the endlessly discussed Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, the platform has built an audience that seems endlessly fascinated by stories where tragedy, psychology, and media spectacle collide. Part of the appeal, I think, comes from the uncomfortable question at the center of most true-crime stories: how does something horrific happen in seemingly ordinary circumstances? Viewers aren’t just watching for shock value anymore; they’re trying to understand motive, behavior, and the fragile line between accident and intent. As active viewers, we want to think we can solve a case, and sometimes, even get away with a crime.
The Crash is a deeply unsettling new documentary from director Gareth Johnson that examines the real-life case of Mackenzie Shirilla, the Ohio teenager convicted to life in prison after a fatal car crash that killed her boyfriend, Dom, and his friend, Davion.
The documentary features the kind of imagery we’ve come to expect from modern true crime: wreckage photos, emergency recordings, devastated families. A car traveling at 100 miles per hour into a brick building is already horrifying enough. But what initially appeared to be reckless teenage driving slowly transforms into something more disturbing as investigators begin questioning whether this was truly an accident at all.
The Crash spends much of its runtime exploring the conflicting narratives surrounding Mackenzie herself. Was she a traumatized teenager in an unstable relationship? Was this an impulsive act driven by emotional volatility? Or was it, as prosecutors argued, intentional murder? Interviews with friends, family members, investigators, and legal experts slowly build a portrait of teenage relationships shaped by insecurity, obsession, and emotional instability. It’s not sensationalized in the way some Netflix true-crime entries can be. If anything, The Crash feels colder and sadder than expected.
We get first-class interviews with Mackenzie from prison to get her side of the story. This is interesting, as it’s toward the end of the documentary, where audiences will have their opinions and conclusions. It’s striking that she looks so young, but there’s still a lack of accountability and selfishness to her (maybe edited to look intentionally so), but she’s hard to sympathize with.
There’s very little stylistic excess; no dramatic recreations every five minutes or flashy editing designed purely for social media clips. Johnson keeps the tone grounded, and this choice works in the documentary’s favor because the case is already emotionally loaded enough without needing artificial embellishment. The use of police dashcam footage gives the documentary a sense of authenticity and shows real-time horrors, such as telling her parents what had happened and walking through hospital corridors. You simply can’t recreate their disbelief and shock. This type of footage is what made The Perfect Neighbor an Oscar contender, and I suspect we’ll see this use of footage in future true crime documentaries.
There is also the CCTV footage of the car speeding and crashing, and whilst we do not see the car crash, we see the build-up, and that’s just as horrifying. But the most distressing footage is definitely of both teenagers creating content in their cars, smoking weed, doing drugs, and driving. This is what makes the case more suspenseful when her drug tests came back clean after the accident.
However, the documentary occasionally struggles with balance. In trying to present multiple perspectives fairly, there are moments when it risks becoming emotionally detached from the victims themselves. Dom and Davion sometimes feel slightly overshadowed by the psychological intrigue surrounding Mackenzie and the trial. It’s a difficult line for true crime to walk, and The Crash doesn’t entirely avoid that trap.
The courtroom scene, I found very sad, and whilst I hadn’t reached my own conclusions about what I think happened (as I don’t think we’ll ever truly know), I did find myself feeling sorry for Mackenzie. But the families felt that they had gotten justice, as we must remember that two lives were lost. It’s up to you if you believe it was an accident or not.
By the end, I found myself less interested in the mechanics of the case and more unsettled by the humanity behind it. That’s where The Crash leaves its mark, not as a mystery to solve, but as a tragedy that becomes more complicated the longer you sit with it. If there’s a lesson to be learned, it’s that social media simply doesn’t have a positive influence on anyone, and we’re seeing how every single post and your online presence can and will be used against you. The Crash is an excellently produced documentary, which is a must-watch for true-crime fans. It’s an emotional rollercoaster which will keep you intrigued, invested and guessing from start to finish.
