Day: June 10, 2014

Devil’s Knot

- Roshan

I have seen 4 documentaries on the West Memphis 3 case; 3 teenagers who were convicted for killing three young boys and subsequently sentenced to life in prison. However in 2013 a feature film was also made about it although it focuses mostly on the initial case, trial and sentencing leaving a lot of the story untold. This movie is Devil’s Knot directed by award winning director Atom Egoyan and starring Reese Witherspoon, Mireille Enos, Colin Firth, Dane DeHaan, Kevin Durand, Bruce Greenwood, Stephen Moyer, Elias Koteas, Amy Ryan, and Alessandro Nivola.

What can the movie offer that the 4 well made documentaries haven’t already provided to viewers? Although I am a fan of director Egoyan and several of the actors are top class as well the movie seems like it could have best been avoided. Especially because since it’s mostly seen from the angle of the mother of one of the 8 year old boys who was brutally murdered and the private investigator helping the defendants’ lawyers with their case. Granted the documentaries focused more on the WM3 and the surroundings of the cases and that Devil’s Knot is based on the 2002 book of the same name by Mara Leveritt. In 2002 the WM3 were still in prison. Anyways the movie shows the reaction of the families, especially that of Pamela Hobbs and her second husband Terry Hobbs who was step-father to Stevie Branch, one of the murder victims.

However the movie then goes a bit more of the emotional route with focus on Pam having dreams and visions of Stevie leading to her finding her son’s pocket knife among Terry’s belongings and her suspecting him. That’s a bit of a stretch and strays from known facts about the case. I did like the portrayal of most of the actors who were in the movie – Kevin Durand was almost hilarious as  the notorious John Mark Byers, Adoptive father of victim Christopher Byers. However Colin Firth’s role as the investigator Ron Lax and focus on him in a restaurant watching the case on tv is just unnecessary. I wish they would have focused more on the victims families other than Pam, Terry & Byers and also shown more about the WM3 – more on their lives. Instead we have what seems like clips of things happening in the case that are collected without much cohesion.

I’d give this movie a 6.5 outta 10 but I hope that anyone who watches this will also go and check out the 4 documentaries that were able to go into much greater depth & detail on the case of the West Memphis 3.

Reliance’s Poor, Pathetic Attempts At Customer Care

- Roshan

They have done it again. Just when I think that Reliance Broadband’s customer care service cannot get any worse – they surprise me and become even more pathetic! My internet connection went down on Friday afternoon at around 1pm or so. I called up Reliance’s customer care at around 1:30 pm to make a complaint but the line kept getting disconnected. Finally I had to call the local tech guy’s office and have them register a complaint on my behalf, using the online tool. But 24 hours later – no contact from Reliance. Fail #1! So I called the call center on Saturday evening and asked what happened . Agent says “No idea” so I asked to get transferred to a floor supervisor. This guy listened to me for 20 minutes and promised me a call back, after checking with the technical department, either later that night or  by Sunday afternoon. And guess what – he does not call me back! Fail #2!

So a senior customer care representative promises a call back to a customer and he does not deliver! Wow, that is bad. But wait there’s more. On Sunday I called their call center again by the afternoon and spoke to a young lady- she too, after checking the status of the complaint – said that I would get a call back from a technical employee if the connection is not restored by 6pm. 6pm came and went and no call back and no internet connection – Fail # 3! I called the call center at night and spoke to an agent and for 1 hour he tried to transfer my call to a supervisor on my request. No supervisor was available to take my call and yet they did not call me back either – Fail #4!

On Monday, I called the appellate complaint desk and raised a separate complaint and told the guy that picked up all that had happened. He too promised me a call back by 4pm-5pm that day – it did not materialize and so Fail #5! So I called the appellate desk again later that day and asked the lady who picked up what the delay was all about and why was I not given a call back. She replied “Problem might take upto 4 days to resolve sir, and call back was not mentioned in the comments by the previous person!” WHAT THE FUCK!!

Finally today, while I was away at the hospital, some jerk from their technical section calls me up and says “Has the problem been resolved?” NO hello, no introduction – just a demand to know if the problem is resolved! I told him that I was away so he said he will call back later in the afternoon. By 3pm they came to my apartment and were let in by my dad and apparently the problem was resolved because, hey I am typing this on my home system.

This is the lousiest, most ridiculous and pathetic attempt at customer care service provided by any company in my experience!