Lest there be any lingering doubt, director Ramin Bahrani intones in narration over his first documentary feature “2nd Chance” that this is a metaphor for America. This isn’t particularly surprising given that his subject Richard Davis, a pioneer of the concealable bulletproof vest, straddles the country’s dark fascinations with violence and capitalism. But it also isn’t entirely accurate, either. The line feels like a holdover from an earlier incarnation of the film Bahrani couldn’t bear to excise. The film as we see it scratches at allegory but mostly remains in portrait mode.
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It’s tempting to lump in “2nd Chance” with the larger wave of “scammer” stories sweeping through the documentary world after Trump’s ascent. Richard Davis can stand-in for everything from the American capacity for re-invention and self-mythologizing to the sad reality of how greed pushes businesses into grifting. But Bahrani has explored this topic now for over a decade. Everything from his early microbudget neorealist indies like “Man Push Cart” and starrier morality plays like “99 Homes” concern strivers forced to question just how far they’ll go to achieve their version of the American Dream. But unlike these fictional creations in the Bahrani extended universe, it’s never clear just how much Richard Davis realizes he’s deluding himself and others in pursuit of an impossible grail.
There’s a startling lack of clarity and facts around Davis’ origin story. Bahrani prints the legend, yet subjects it to intense scrutiny. Davis claims his impetus for moving into bulletproof vest creation and manufacturing stems from the fiery destruction of his pizza shops at the tail-end of the ‘60s. Bahrani can’t verify the story – not for lack of investigation – and it feels oddly more satisfying this way. What is the reactionary second half of the American century if not a product of feelings and falsehoods meant to override facts?
Davis’ self-aggrandizing mythology provides Bahrani with a permission structure to dwell in the ecstatic truth his subject has created for himself. “2nd Chance” is a natural fit for that Werner Herzog style, though Bahrani does seem to force-fit his story into the master documentarian’s mold. He follows odd tangents and disrupts the chronological flow of Davis’ story by belatedly introducing key characters in the film. The unusual stylistic and narrative choices all culminate in an unexpected coda involving a moment of catharsis between two shooters involved in a violent incident many years prior. It’s powerful, yes. But it’s also erroneous and out of step with the larger aims of the documentary.
These discursive cul-de-sacs pull focus away from richer pieces of the story. There’s one avenue in “2nd Chance” that goes regrettably underexplored – the kinship between Bahrani and Davis as filmmakers. Davis had many flaws as a businessman, as the film demonstrates in unsparing detail through the collapse of his company Second Chance, but he understood that customers need proof of concept for purchase. So, in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of his vests, Davis did not hesitate to put himself on camera shooting himself in the chest. These verité videos, along with snuff-style films glorifying consequence-free gun violence, endeared Davis to throngs of police officers. Yet this represents little more than a bullet-point in Bahrani’s telling.
This incomplete thought highlights how the greatest tension in the film remains unresolved – how much of a character Bahrani should be in the story. He makes his authorial presence known and felt in his fiction (as well as in some of his documentary shorts), but it never feels loud or intrusive. His films traditionally opt to show, not tell, their themes. But Bahrani does not feel as natural slipping into Errol Morris mode as he makes his interrogation and line of thought known to viewers. “2nd Chance” oscillates uneasily between letting subjects and events speak for themselves – which Davis and his ilk can easily do – and having Bahrani telegraph his ideas and intentions. Documentaries can do both, of course, but the decision here reeks of uncertainty or incompletion.
“2nd Chance” at once embraces and shies away from its metaphors. While getting to watch and listen to Richard Davis’ history and memory offers plenty of face-value fascination, a compelling subject alone does not make a fully realized documentary. What Bahrani assembles from his research and probing interviews just does not feel fully digested. It’s a collection of false starts hinting at an incisive slice of the national spirit but never quite getting off to the races. [B-]