Movie review
May 14, 2026 · 95 min · R
Woke Score
Lower is better
Review
The Crash is a 2026 Netflix true-crime documentary about the real 2022 case in Strongsville, Ohio. Seventeen-year-old Mackenzie Shirilla drove her car into a brick building at nearly 100 miles per hour, killing her boyfriend Dominic Russo and his friend Davion Flanagan. What first looked like a tragic accident after a graduation party turned into a murder investigation and trial. The film uses footage, text messages, and interviews with families, friends, police, and lawyers to examine the volatile relationship, online teen behavior, and evidence about intent. It presents the facts and different viewpoints without strong identity politics or activist messaging.
Breakdown
These are the editorial factors and ratings behind our score for The Crash.
Woke representation / casting
Documentary uses real people involved in the actual case. No fictional casting, no visible emphasis on identity quotas, signaling, or representation priorities in prominent roles. Demographics appear incidental to the crime story.
Woke political dialogue
Content consists of real interviews, evidence presentation, text messages, and personal accounts. No scripted activist language, political lectures, or ideological dialogue appears.
Identity-driven story themes
Centers on a real volatile teenage relationship, text-message evidence of fights and threats, and the role of online teen behavior and social media in the events. Explores personal dynamics and modern youth culture without framing around race, gender oppression, or identity politics as core drivers.
Western institutional / cultural critique
Includes discussion of family dynamics, parenting, social media influence on teens, and legal questions around teen intent and a medical condition claim. Shows mild observations on contemporary youth culture and society but avoids strong activist-style attacks on traditional institutions, patriarchy, or systemic power structures.
Woke character or canon changes
Not relevant. This is a documentary about real people and documented events with no source material, canon, or fictional characters altered for ideological reasons.
Anti-woke backlash and complaints
Some viewers and online voices criticize the editing for potentially making the perpetrator or her family look more sympathetic and for possibly underplaying evidence of planning or intent. These complaints focus on factual balance and true-crime presentation rather than explicit accusations of woke ideology, DEI messaging, or identity politics.
Creator track record context
Key team members are professional documentary makers with experience in true crime, reality formats, and human-interest stories. Some prior projects involve neurodiversity voices or institutional accountability cases, showing mild progressive or victim-focused tendencies common in factual television, but no dominant record of identity-driven activism, DEI emphasis, or repeated modern social-justice framing.
Production
