After opening to just two reviews in major media outlets, the producers of “Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer” are asking for an explanation.
In a letter to the National Society of Film Critics, “Gosnell” producers Phelim McAleer, Ann McElhinney and Magdalena Segieda pointed out that the film, which opened in nearly 700 theaters Friday, was reviewed only by the Los Angeles Times and Forbes.
In contrast, they noted to NSFC Executive Director Liz Weis, other films released the same weekend were reviewed by 70 to 280 publications.
“While we obviously understand that in a free country like the United States no publication is under any obligation to review anything they choose not to, we write to ask for clarification as to what your group’s policies and standards are and by what criteria these decisions are made and whether or not this was an intentional effort on the part of members of your group working either in coordination or independently to suppress information about our film from the American public,” the producers said.
In an interview last week with WND, McAleer contended the movie was being ignored because of its exposure of the abortion procedure.
“The establishment hates that the truth is getting out there,” the Irish filmmaker said.
Philadelphia abortionist Dr. Kermit Gosnell is serving life in prison for the murder of three infants who were born alive during late-term abortion procedures. But McAleer cites evidence in a grand-jury report and elsewhere that Gosnell likely killed hundreds more.
The Forbes review said the movie was made for “avid right-wing media consumer(s)” and the Times said it “never loses sight of the choir to which it is plainly preaching.”
However, “Gosnell” has a 99 percent Audience Score rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Movie that ‘would make the pro-choice crowd squirm’
WND columnist Jack Cashill, who attended a sold-out showing over the weekend, praised the film and offered an explanation for why it’s being ignored.
He said he had grown used to attending “well-intentioned movies” but found Gosnell to be different.
“It is well produced, powerful and thoroughly provocative,” he wrote.
“That said, the major media are refusing to review the movie for much the same reason they refused to report on the trial. Any honest look at abortion unnerves them.”
Cashill pointed to a scene that “would make the pro-choice crowd squirm.”
Taken virtually word for word from the trial transcript, the scene has a pro-choice prosecutor questioning a respectable female abortionist on the stand to show how anomalous was Gosnell’s practice.
On cross-examination, however, Gosnell’s defense attorney, played by Nick Searcey, walks the doctor through the details of her lawful termination of a baby while still in the womb.
Cashill concluded: “The inescapable reality is that a D&E, dilation and extraction, abortion is no less gruesome than Gosnell’s snipping of a live baby’s spinal cord. It is simply less visible.”
The doctor describes, Cashill wrote, “how she removes the thorax, pelvis, cranium, and each arm and leg separately using surgical instruments.”
“If need be, she crushes the baby’s brain in order to extract it.”
Cashill said no one “who participated in the trial or who watches the movie walks away unaffected.”
“When confronted with an undeniable truth, abortion providers and the media do what they inevitably do: ignore it, suppress it and hope it goes away.”
‘Offense’ to ‘community standards’
The obstacles for the makers of “Gosnell” began with being unable to find a studio in Hollywood willing to fund it.
They decided to go directly to the public for crowdfunding. But the most prominent crowdfunding site, Kickstarter, rejected the request, saying it would offend their “community standards.”
NPR rejected an ad describing Gosnell as an “abortionist” and “abortion doctor,” even though the taxpayer-funded outlet’s own coverage of the subject uses the terms.
And among other opposition, as WND reported, a hotel under apparent pressure from Planned Parenthood canceled a screening of the movie.
