Tread

Every country has its fair share of nut jobs but it seems The United States of America has a disproportionate amount of them. Add religion and guns as well as a bloody great bulldozer you get just another crazy day in small town America . Pushed to his breaking point, a master welder in a small town at the foot of the Rocky Mountains quietly fortifies a bulldozer with 30 tons of concrete and steel and seeks to destroy those he believes have wronged him. I don't remember this actually happening back in 2004 . It obviously got lost in the news as it happened when Reagan died . Bad Timing Merv! Nobody comes out of this documentary that well . The town folk , counsellors and rule makers seem to have it in for Mervin and he obviously isn't stable but as the film goes on you begin to realise that maybe he wasn't as hard done by as he would like you to think . He definitely had a screw come loose and because of that he decided to take revenge, knowing it would be the last thing he did and it was glorious !! Who doesn't want to destroy everything belonging to the arse holes they know . I certainly would love too! It's a really good documentary. My only criticism is that they used some reconstructions and that is never good but apart from that it's a very good watch .

This is an interesting documentary about a truly bizarre incident that occurred in 2004 in a small town in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Marvin Heemayer, a middle aged businessman with a grudge against Granby and its principal citizens, went on a two hour rampage. Yet instead of going bughouse like most nuts in this country do nowadays with a high powered rifle alone, Heemayer, an admitted genius welder, took a heavy bulldozer, armored it with concrete reinforced steel plates, and then used the dozer to destroy businesses and the city hall. Although no life was lost other than Heemayer's, he left a vast swathe of senseless destruction, permanently searing the memory of his basically pointless tantrum into Granby's residents. The doc's first hour sets the stage for Heemayer's onslaught, providing background as to why a highly skilled, relatively affluent man would do such a thing. A talented craftsman with a head for business, Heemayer made enough from his muffler shop in Granby to do as he liked: travel, hang out with his girlfriend, and most of all snowmobile, a winter past time he pursued with fanatical passion. Yet despite this apparently ideal, idyllic setup, resentment steadily built up as Heemayer became frustrated in his business dealings, increasingly more convinced the town's good old boy network was in league against him. Most of this is conveyed by a voiceover of the long jeremiad Heemayer recorded just prior to going bananas with his homemade tank. Some might find this segment overlong and tedious, but it makes it plain the slights and wrongs Heemayer railed against largely existed in his mind alone. As one friend put it, "he spent too much time in the hot tub by himself." The poor, deluded man basically hyped himself into believing God told him to do this terrible thing. Even those who find the prologue overlong will still be amazed and appalled by the doc's climactic footage. Resembling one of the crude behemoths that crashed through no man's land in WWI, Heemayer's bulldozer was basically unstoppable with small arms fire no more effective against it than BBs. He used the dozer blade to devastating effect, first destroying a concrete batch plant next to his own business, then City Hall, and finally a hardware store. It was an absolute wonder no one else was hurt, especially since the library was located in City Hall. Heemayer was incredibly ingenious, not only armoring the bulldozer, but installing loopholes to fire high powered, .50 caliber rifles, video cameras to assist him in steering, and a ventilation system to keep the viewing ports clear. What a shame all this cleverness was devoted to destruction. The frenzy only stopped when the bulldozer got stuck and ended as these things so often do with Heemayer killing himself. I recommend this film to people with a clinical interest in human dysfunction and also (no shame) to guys like myself who are fascinated by armored vehicles and the damage they can do.

You can say what you want about Marvin Heemeyer but in the end I think most of the people will agree that there's a limit of what a man can take before taking justice in his own hands. Not a lot of people would go bezerk like he did, at least not at that point, but a lot of people would have thought about it, me included. I believe every single word Marvin Heemeyer said, and I certainly don't believe anything from Cody Docheff (he looked like a psychopath, more than anyone else in this documentary) or the Thompson family. I think in the end they deserved everything Marv did to them, they got it coming, thought they were above the law and everything else, and I hope this will be a life lesson to them (even though I doubt scum like them can learn anything) that you can't push somebody to the extreme by bullying and ganging up against somebody, making somebody's life miserable just for the fun of it. Marvin Heemeyer isn't completely innocent though, he's clearly losing it after talking about God and predestination (I can't take anybody serious that is believing something so foolish as a God and certainly not when talikng about a God's will), but it's quite understandable that someone goes mental after years of putting up with injustice and that by the local authorities. Small tows and villages have their cliques, have their little club that seem to think they rule everything, it's a fact that you can't deny. Rich people can't stand it to not getting everything like they demand it. Marvin Heemeyer died because he was fed up with the justice system, he didn't die cowardly but as a hero. The documentary is pleasant to watch, it's well made and everybody gets to have his say on the matter so it's not a biased documentary. Certainly worth watching!

No matter what you think of Marv Heemeyer's case and his motivations, in the end,.this is an interesting film worth watching. It's edited nicely in a style to keep things moving, the story never gets boring. Definitely recommended.

Very absorbing documentary depicting both sides of a contentious encounter with small town government. I remember when this happened. Many people actually supported Marv Heemeyer, saying that the town council and the good ole boy network had it coming. Not surprising, as most people are indeed frustrated with sewage tap-in fees, property and school tax increases, zoning BS, and corrupt, heavy handed town councils & school boards who regard their office as a position of power instead of service to the community. Obviously, Marvin Heemeyer made some bad choices, but they did too. Watch their eyes when they're talking - and consider the remark that what Heemeyer did "made the town a lot of money". Sound like someone trying to get one last jab in? In the end, Marv did "fight civil hall" - on his terms, and won the last battle. In his own words, he leveled the playing field. Not only that, he robbed his adversaries of a trial and the opportunity to send him to prison.

It's a little slow to start but once the real story gets going it's all worth it. I get a kick out of these nut cases who do these types of things, they always say god told them to, or I'm a patriot I'm not going to let them get away with that. If you dont know the story and a lot of people dont because of Reagan passing away the next day you need to its actually a comedy documentary to us or another example of mental illness which we saw at our Capitol being terrorized by Mentally Ill people who feel their god vengeance or patriot vengeance needs to be solved by mindless violence. Its definitely a must see at least once for every one.

I don't know if what the man said about the people in the city was true, partly true or not true at all. These small cities owned by mostly one family are known to yield a lot of power. If it is true or partly true, what this man was saying, it just shows us that hurting people has consequences. I tend to believe what the man is saying was partly to mostly true. It is a shame that our courts and laws do not protect us from people in power being able to take advantage of another. With great power comes great responsibility!

Just like the Michael Douglas movie "Falling Down", this tragic documentary presents the viewer with an average guy who gets kicked repeatedly and eventually has enough. I don't think they did a very good job in this documentary exploring the aspect of what, if any, actual corruption was involved in the town's actions against Marv, which is an unfortunate omission. They just interviewed a few of them and we should take it on faith that these people are on the up and up, apparently. Anyone with a cynical eye towards our dear leaders know better than that. One could only wonder what the narrative would be like in 2020 with rampant protests across the US. Would Marv be viewed as a "peaceful" protester, "peacefully" destroying a city while "peacefully" shooting at cops and "peacefully" trying to murder people he disagrees with? Is he an anti-hero in today's anti-cop/anti-government context? Had the documentary been produced in the midst of today's (summer of 2020) news cycle, maybe they would have spun it different? Makes you think.