The Thin Blue Line's Agenda

The Thin Blue Line may not blatantly say it, but there is an obvious agenda for the film, which is to prove that Randall Adams should not be in jail for the murder of a police officer. The film does seem to prove his innocence, but it mainly makes the point that there was never enough evidence to give Adams a guilty verdict. The documentary utilizes a number of different types of proof that contradict the theory that condemns Adams for the shooting.
The film uses interviews to give us the feeling that not only was the evidence false, but Randall Adams could not be capable of this type of crime. We learn, through interviews of those attached to the case, that Randall has no criminal record and had no motive once so ever that would lead him to kill the cop.
The film also uses newspaper clippings as a way of telling us the story, but one of the most interesting part of the film is the use of dramatization. We are not only shown what happened, but the director shows us what could have happened. It works very well within the film and adds to the belief that Adams should never have been found guilty for this murder. In each dramatization, the face of the killer is never shown. We are not able to make out his face because there was no chance for anyone to know what his face looked like.
An interesting part of the film came at the end when we see only an audio recorder and hear a tape playing. Nothing goes on throughout the scene visually, but there is no reason for it. We practically hear David Harris say that he is the only one who knows that Adams is innocent. The conversation going on is so enthralling that we do not need to see anything going on. This scene might not have worked in some documentaries, but it was able to work so well in this film because Morris did an incredible job of keeping the viewer interested. He pulled us into a world that we did not know of, but made it clear as to why he wanted us to see the problems that sent an innocent man to jail.
It's amazing how much of an impact this film had, especially because it lead to the release of Randall Adams. It shows that Morris was able to do exactly what he wanted, which was to prove that there was practically no evidence that supported the theory that Adams killed this cop.