Nov 25

Nov 25 'The Mystery of D.B. Cooper' film review: Unmasking the infamous hijacker turned crime legend

No one knows what happened to D.B. Cooper but the true crime documentary 'The Mystery of D.B. Cooper' (premiering on HBO and HBO Max on Nov. 25) profiles four prime suspects, one of whom could have gotten away with the only unsolved hijacking in U.S. history.

In short: On Thanksgiving Eve 1971, a man known as D.B. Cooper disappeared without a trace after he hijacked a passenger airliner and jumped out of the plane over the Pacific Northwest. Friends and family of four suspects are interviewed.

Almost five decades later, the unsolved crime has almost completely slipped away from public awareness. At this point, D.B. Cooper's escape has become the stuff of legend, even as the story itself edges closer to becoming a historical footnote. 'Mystery' deftly recaps the daring 1971 crime to get the audience up to speed while adding intriguing context and details to the story. The crime itself was pretty straightforward, however, 'Mystery' interweaves the known timeline of the hijacking with profiles of various suspects whose lifestyle and skills seem to be more-than-circumstantial perfect fits for Cooper. The first-person interviews with those aboard the ill-fated airplane and those who have spent decades suspecting a loved one was Cooper re-energizes this half-century old crime. 'Mystery' is a true crime doc with the energy of a page-turner mystery book.

'Mystery,' however, is ultimately noncommittal to coming to any conclusions. It's happy to hint at possible answers rather than draw any firm conclusions. The documentary shines a light on a lot of fascinating information, but the documentary is content to lay out a lot of information - and just let the audience decide and draw their own conclusions. While the presentation is exciting, this open-ended approach is unsatisfying. The fallacy of this approach is, however, is by introducing four possible suspects ... at least three of these candidates could not possibly be D.B. Cooper. And of course, there's the possibility that all four prime suspects could be red herrings if Cooper fell to his death in 1971. The documentary is all the more palatable if expectations are calibrated: 'Mystery' makes no attempt to solve the case of DB Cooper.

The more compelling undercurrent of 'Mystery' is its portrait of everyday people who are absolutely certain their friend or loved one is the famed hijacker. One suspect's picture and story is lined up against the infamous mugshot and event timeline and it looks like a perfect match ... that is until the very next suspect's photo and 'secret life' is matched against Cooper. At its core, 'Mystery' is less interested in cracking the D.B. Cooper case and it’s much more interested in examining the phenomenon and mystique of unsolved mysteries. The criminal has stepped into the upper echelon of myth in American crime, alongside Billy the Kid or John Dillinger. With so little known about the case and even less known about the man himself, 'Mystery' is more than happy to play in the vague blind spots of this infamous case.

Final verdict: Smart editing and tantalizing new details makes the nearly half century old crime feel current - even if the documentary settles for asking more questions than finding any answers.