My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (2009) on Netflix
Detectives Havenhurst and Vargas answer a murder call and see Brad McCullam leaving. He barricades himself across the street with two hostages. His fiancée Ingrid and Lee Meyers talk to police.
- Netflix2.9/5
- IMDb6.1/1011,705 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes49%
Trailer
Plot summary
Detectives Havenhurst and Vargas are called to a house where Mrs. McCullam has been killed with an antique sword. Among the people outside they see her son Brad walking off with a coffee cup in his hand. Brad has shut himself in the house across the street with two hostages. His fiancée Ingrid tells the detectives about his trip to Peru, where his friends drowned on a kayak run he skipped at the last moment. Lee Meyers, who directed Brad in a Greek tragedy, recalls the rehearsals and the antique sword Brad brought to them. Brad asks for pizza and a car to Mexico. A SWAT team takes command.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (2009)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The film is loosely based on Mark Yavorsky, an actor at the University of San Diego who, reenacting a scene from Orestes, murdered his mother with an antique saber; Herzog has said that about 70 percent of the script he wrote with Herbert Golder is false.
- The real Yavorsky's name was changed for the film and the entire hostage situation was invented: the real man surrendered immediately and took no hostages, though some lines came verbatim from his case records.
- Rather than face China's lengthy shooting-permit process, Herzog flew to Kashgar with actor Shannon and producer Bassett on tourist visas, shooting a market scene guerrilla style with a small digital video camera.
- Herzog was impressed with Herbert Golder's project, told him he wanted to work on the film, and the two went straight to Herzog's home to finish the screenplay: "You're not leaving until it's finished, and you're not staying longer than a week."
- Mark Yavorsky, whose case inspired the film, lived in a trailer where he had built a shrine to Herzog's film Aguirre, the Wrath of God; it concerned Herzog so much that the two never met again.
- Two films by Herzog, this one and Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, were nominated for the Golden Lion at the 2009 Venice Film Festival, the first time two films in one year by the same director were nominated for the award.
- The shoot's location sat so close to San Diego International Airport that crew members were stationed on the roof with binoculars to alert the crew about planes that would disrupt the sound recording, as Herzog insisted on using only production sound.
- Scenes were shot on Peru's Urubamba River, a Herzog favorite that also appeared in his Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo; he had first set the scenes on the Braldu River in the Himalayas, where the real Yavorsky had a life-changing trip, but avoided northern Pakistan for safety.
