I worked in the TV news business for around 30 years. An old truism that news videographers always repeated is that TV cameras are “asshole magnets.” I would add, “Batshit, crazy loony people magnets.” Only I would say it truthfully and nicely: “mentally ill people.”
The first time I saw the news footage of “Kai” (whose name we later learn is Caleb Lawrence McGillvary) almost exactly ten years ago, I knew that the reporter holding the mic was thinking to himself, “Holy crap! This guy is the perfect character – this is gonna go viral.”
He had no idea
Kai was a hitchhiking passenger in a car that crashed into another. The driver of that car allegedly began to attack the woman whose car he had just hit. Kai produced a hatchet from his backpack and hit the man over the head with it several times, saving the woman’s life.
Kai’s exuberant recounting to the Fresno CA reporter about how he “suh-macked!” the man was comical, though the film shows us how that sound bite was a clue to a much darker side of the drifter.
Within days, millions of viewers had seen Kai on the internet. He was a star, appearing on the Jimmy Kimmel Show and accepting free surfboards, meals and even a can of cold beer, from “fans” who wanted a selfie and a real life meeting with him.
The doc mixes the abundant archive footage with new interviews – the Fresno reporter especially gets a lot of screen time. According to his account, he truly had the best intentions for Kai, once he became famous and it became obvious that the dude was an out-of-control individual who was simply not going to make this unexpected windfall turn his life around.
Two things that were new to me, and that I won’t reveal: one is Kai’s story of an abusive, almost sickeningly cruel childhood. He tells it well and often…but is it true? The film takes a look at this with an unexpected interview subject.
The other thing is the actual crime which changed Kai’s life permanently and ended another man’s life. Although the doc waits until far too late in the telling, the detective work that went into finding the titular hitchhiker, not to mention the gruesome details of the murder, make this more than just an indictment of viral pop culture. It really is a True Crime film.
Yes, that first time I saw the clip ten years ago? There is something else I knew right away: the guy giving the great sound bite is obviously mentally ill. If someone, anyone could have tackled that aspect of his life instead of throwing appearance fees and free beer at him, there would have been a much happier story to tell.
