Guerilla: The Taking Of Patty Hearst review

The Patty Hearst industry has been in full flow ever since the 21-year-old daughter of one of America's wealthiest tycoons was kidnapped in 1974. The case became a worldwide phenomenon and a soap opera played out on live TV, as desperate parents pleaded for the return of their beloved daughter, who fell in love with her captors, eventually sided with them and was jailed on her release for armed robbery. It's the sort of stuff that you wouldn't believe if you saw it in a film, but now comes the third feature documentary on the subject, to match Paul Schrader's 1988 biopic as well as countless books, TV shows and magazine articles.

The makers of 'Guerilla' do have some new light to shine on the matter, although the story will be familiar to anyone who has taken a passing interest in it over the years. For the first time, two members of the Symbionese Liberation Army - the revolutionary post-hippy group that had previously murdered for its beliefs - talk freely about the subject. Russ Little and Michael Bortin take us through the workings of the organisation, unsurprisingly telling us that it was more or less organized chaos, with a handful of members proclaiming themselves to be America's terrorists.

Arguably more fascinating is the personal story, largely told through tape recordings from the time, in which we see Patty's gradual change from innocent student into fully-fledged member. The video evidence of her participation in the bank robbery is still chilling today, as is the extraordinary final shootout that led to her eventual (temporary) freedom. It's interesting to see these events played out with thirty years' perspective: the concept of showing 'raw news' as it happened was still in its infancy. The human interest angle is also examined with the bizarre sight of her heartbroken father agreeing to the kidnappers' demands that he should organize a $4m food drop to the poor (which ended in riots), as well as the increasingly poor fortune of Hearst's boyfriend, who acted as a public spokesman for the family and then found out by taped message that Patty had dumped him

The surviving members of the SLA finally confessed to a separate murder in 2002 and were formally sentenced to under ten years each, and despite their occasionally rebellious remarks, it's clear that post-911 America is no place for homemade terrorism.

While the carefully edited footage tells the story well, the point of the film does become occasionally obscured and certainly its biggest problem is the lack of Hearst herself. She is only shown fleetingly (and amusingly) on Gaby Roslin's chat show. Perhaps the documentary she made five years ago for the Entertainment channel cleansed her of the need to speak again, but inevitably her absence prevents a good and enjoyable documentary from becoming a great one.

Paul Hurley