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Born in Canada, Caleb Lawrence McGillvary is known in the United States as Kai the Hatchet-Wielding Hitchhiker. In other words: Kai, the axe-wielding hitchhiker. The twenty-something homeless man was proclaimed a hero in 2013 when a video of him, filmed by a local news agency in Fresno, California, went viral. This shows how Kai excitedly recounts how he attacks a man he gets lifted from with an axe, after this Jet Simmons McBride suddenly hits an unsuspecting pedestrian and begins attacking a passerby. After that, everyone wants to talk to Kai.
The youngster becomes an internet sensation and ends up on Jimmy Kimmel’s talk show. The producers of The Kardashians even consider dedicating a reality show to Kai. However, it remains difficult to meet him, as he keeps wandering from place to place and apparently doesn’t feel the need for more security in his life. It is therefore ironic that this free bird is finally sentenced to 57 years in prison after committing an unforgivable act. Or as one of the documentary’s commentators put it: “The guy who never wanted an address is now stuck in the same place forever.”
But what is documentary filmmaker Colette Camden trying to achieve with this film? In the first hour, it mainly shows how much the media got into Kai and how they turned him into a monster in a sense. But Camden is responsible for it: she shows the same perverse interest as news channels and YouTube channels did in 2013. She doesn’t seem to realize it until the end of her documentary. Relatives of Kai’s victim then speak up and say that as a media outlet you have to be careful of “who glorifies you”. In short: journalists should have been more careful in their attention to Kai.
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As is often the case in the United States, this conclusion is reached when the damage is already done. The hitchhiker wielding the ax is also mustard after meals.
