It was a disturbingly believable crime we’ve heard too many times before. In 2006, the Duke lacrosse team held a party and hired two exotic dancers for the night. After that night, one of the women accused three Duke players of sexually assaulting her in the bathroom, and from that moment on, the worlds of this woman, the three accused players, Duke University, and Durham, North Carolina changed. ESPN’s latest 30 for 30 documentary, Fantastic Lies, focuses on the Duke lacrosse scandal and will make you question the all-controlling power of authority and all of your college-focused prejudices. Also, it’s now on Netflix.

Typically, I like to stay up-to-date on college scandals. There’s something fascinating about crime existing in the often-enclosed and supposedly high-brow bubbles that are college campuses. Colleges are miniature versions of the real world with lower stakes and their own ecosystems, so when the stakes are raised, it’s almost immediately gripping. However, I went into Fantastic Lies knowing the bare minimum about the Duke lacrosse scandal. I expected to watch another depressingly common story about privileged male athletes taking advantage of a woman — a woman in the adult industry to make matters more depressingly common. Instead, Fantastic Lies turns this common narrative upside down. This documentary is a difficult-to-watch exploration about how quickly order and justice can crumble when the authority we trust lies.

Director Marina Zenovich (Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired) delicately walks the fizzing combination of societal factors that transformed this story from just another sex crime to the university scandal of the year. But why did this scandal gain the all powerful weight it did? Dan Okrent, former public editor of The New York Times, summed up the situation best during his interview in the documentary:

It was white over black. It was male over female. It was rich over poor. It was educated over uneducated. My god, all the things we know happen in the world coming together in one place. And the journalists start to quiver with the thrill when something like this happens.

Ultimately, the three Duke athletes — Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty, and Reade Seligmann — were rightfully proven innocent of all rape allegations, and it’s the story of their hard won innocence that is the unnerving. This is particularly true because the villains of this story, the Durham County Police Department, District Attorney Mike Nifong, and the media, are institutions that are supposed to be our connection to the truth. There has been a lot of attention paid lately to incompetent and prejudiced police forces, in real life and in our pop culture. Part of the reason behind Making a Murderer and The People V. O.J. Simpson‘s viral success are their focuses on spitefully misguided police forces. Fantastic Lies offers another version of that, but instead of a lower class, non-white person standing as the victim, our sympathy goes to the upper-class, educated, white men and their unstable accuser, who was backed into a corner and the police force used to advance their own narrative (Crystal Mangum). The whole thing watches like the flipped script of an ’80s sports movie, and after watching, you’ll have a hard time deciding which District Attorney you hate more — Making a Murderer’s Ken Kratz or Fantastic Lies’ Nifong.

Fantastic Lies is one of those 30 for 30 documentaries that is only marginally connected to the world of sports. However, in a current athletic environment that is haunted by rape accusations, domestic abuse, cheating, academic fraud, and a legal system that is either too harsh or too lenient depending on where the money goes, it’s a necessary expose of the corruption that exists off the field. In a chilling moment, one of the lacrosse players speculates that their season wouldn’t have been cancelled if this scandal happened to Duke’s beloved and money-making basketball team. As bitter as that observation is, it’s most likely true. Fantastic Lies reveals a media environment, legal system, and university system that failed its students.

[Stream Fantastic Lies on Netflix]

Photos: Netflix