The Alabama Solution
★★★★★
Man… this is a heavy watch.
Without fully stacking it against another Oscar-adjacent doc this year, it’s hard not to think about The Perfect Neighbor while watching The Alabama Solution. Both films wrestle with the same chilling idea: how laws, politics and rhetoric meant to “maintain order” can be weaponized in ways that completely dehumanize people.
What immediately sets The Alabama Solution apart is how it’s told. Much of the footage comes from inside Alabama prisons, captured on smuggled cell phones by the prisoners themselves. At first glance, you might think the blurry, low-quality visuals would lessen the impact. Instead, they do the exact opposite. The roughness makes everything feel lived-in, immediate and terrifyingly real. There’s no cinematic distance here, just survival.
Technically speaking, what the filmmakers accomplish is kind of astonishing. To take scattered interviews, amateur footage and firsthand accounts and shape them into a coherent, gripping narrative is a marvel in itself. This is not easy material to organize, and yet the film never feels sloppy or unfocused.
At the center of the story is one inmate, Robert Earl Council, who becomes the emotional and intellectual backbone of the film. He’s not just a participant; he’s a leader. A teacher. An organizer. Listening to him explain legal rights, rally fellow prisoners and push back against a deeply corrupt system is endlessly compelling. Strip away the fact that he’s incarcerated, and what you’re watching is a masterclass in grassroots leadership under impossible conditions.
The film documents prisoners banding together to demand the bare minimum: human rights. And what they’re up against is relentless—overdoses, brutal guard behavior, chronic understaffing and constant retaliation meant to crush any sense of solidarity. Watching how calmly and intelligently Robert Earl and others respond to every new obstacle thrown in their path is both inspiring and infuriating, because it highlights just how stacked the deck is against them.
Zooming out, The Alabama Solution also exposes how political language and catchphrases are used to paper over real, ongoing harm. Set against Alabama’s deeply entrenched Confederate legacy and its institutional resistance to reform, the film becomes genuinely unsettling. The refusal to bend, or even acknowledge the problem, feels baked into the system.
This is not a documentary that leaves you feeling good. But honestly? That’s not a flaw. It’s the point.
There’s no sensationalism here, no cheap emotional manipulation. What the film does do is ignite a sense of moral urgency. If this is happening in one state, it’s almost impossible not to wonder where else similar abuses are taking place. The humanity inside those concrete walls is undeniable, and the lack of reform becomes impossible to justify.
By the time it’s over, you realize this is the kind of documentary that lingers. The next time you pass a prison, your mind won’t immediately go to the crimes that put people there, but to what’s happening to them once the doors close.
A deeply unsettling, essential documentary, and one I’ll be thinking about for a long time.
