The Jinx: Part Two, review: true-crime’s most grotesque villain returns for a compelling second act
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The combined forces of Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler and David Lynch could not have devised a twist as shocking and bizarre as the one that arrived at the end of season one of true crime blockbuster The Jinx. “What the hell did I do?” said property billionaire Robert Durst in the jaw-dropping conclusion to the 2015 series. “Killed them all, of course!”
But did the eccentric real estate heir really murder his wife, Kathleen, friend Susan Berman and neighbour Morris Black? All the evidence pointed that way and when Durst made his mumbled apparent confession on mic and within earshot of director Andrew Jarecki, he seemed to have sealed his fate.
He was arrested hours before the broadcast of the finale of The Jinx after the producers handed over new evidence uncovered while making the film – a project that initially had a willing participant in the crabbily loquacious Durst. Nine years later, The Jinx (Sky Documentaries) returns with a captivating second season that takes up the rollercoaster story of Durst’s trial for the murder in 2000 of Berman (the crime that prosecutors felt could be pinned on him most easily).
Without Durst as enthusiastic accomplice, The Jinx is a different beast. Rather than a profile of a sinister eccentric, it tracks, from afar and in relatively conventional style, his time in the dock. Nonetheless, this is a wild tale – one that could only unfold on the gonzo fringes of America. It has everything – including sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, the last represented by Nick Chavin, a former singer specialising in “ribald country and western songs” who befriended Durst during their wild days in Manhattan.
In 2015, The Jinx ignited the true-crime craze. Predating subsequent viral hits such as Making a Murderer or Tiger King, it electrifyingly embodied the old cliche of truth being stranger than fiction. At its centre was the fascinatingly repulsive Durst. He was a combination of towering arrogance, bottomless victimhood, and a scratchy speaking voice that suggested Robert De Niro’s method-acting his way through a Donald Trump biopic.
In fact, Hollywood had already immortalised Durst. In 2010, Ryan Gosling played a thinly-veiled version of the billionaire opposite Kirsten Dunst, as his murdered wife, in the film All Good Things (directed by The Jinx’s Jarecki).
Gosling may have been Ken of our hearts in last year’s Barbie. But he had his work cut out getting under the skin of the outrageous Durst. No mere actor could capture his mix of loathsomeness and charisma.
He cuts a more distant figure as The Jinx returns (by necessity, as he was behind bars). He also has a worthy foil in LA Deputy District Attorney John Lewin, a straight-shooter who puts in the hours trying to convince figures from Durst’s past to testify against the accused. They include the craven Chavin, so afraid of becoming entangled in Durst’s life he hides from lawyers in a stairwell.
It’s gripping, especially if you don’t know what happens next (avoid Wikipedia). Jarecki smartly focuses on Durst and the killings. He avoids the temptation to pack in extraneous details or to use the story as an excuse to make a grandiose statement about the dangers of privilege or the wealth divide in America (if he wasn’t a billionaire Durst would have been banged up a long time ago).
The Jinx season one remains unique. It brought audiences on a guided tour of the inner workings of a charming sociopath – and then handed its subject enough rope to incriminate himself. But if the second series is a more traditional account of a murder trial and its aftermath, it is nonetheless supercharged with suspense, and, in Durst, it has one of true crime’s most horrifically compelling villains.
The Jinx season two will air on Sky Documentaries and Now from Monday 22 April
