Last month Netflix announced a brand new true crime documentary, following controversial anti-virus mogul John McAfee during his time on the run in Central America. The documentary has now arrived on Netflix, and it’s hit the number 2 spot faster than you can say “murder investigation.”
Running With The Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee is a chronicle of the titular businessman’s life back in 2012. McAfee fled from his Belize home after the murder of his neighbor, and learning he was a person of interest. Paranoid and convinced he would be murdered if he surrendered himself to the authorities, McAfee went on the run.
But not before hiring a documentary film crew to come along and record everything he did.
The documentary crew ended up with 100s of hours of footage with McAfee during his time on the lam, and conducted interviews with all the people who knew him best. All to gain an insight into the man, once worth $100 million, that claimed to have “hacked the world."
Critics and audiences have been fairly quiet about what they think of Running With The Devil so far. There aren’t enough reviews to generate a Rotten Tomatoes score, and there are fewer than 50 ratings from the audience — clocking in at an average score of 14%. IMDB currently lists the documentary as having 6.1 out of 10, based on 521 scores.
Nick Schager at The Daily Beast had positive things to say, noting that “Running With the Devil provides a fly-on-the-wall portrait of the antivirus pioneer turned drugged-out, heavily armed fugitive.”
Lauren Morris at Radio Times gave the doc four stars out of five, saying that “Netflix's latest dive into true crime is a captivating portrait of antivirus software king John McAfee, as he spends almost 10 years on the run.”
On the flipside, Brain Lowry at CNN wasn’t too keen, nothing that the documentary “suffers from zooming in too close on its subject, leaving a documentary that's chaotic and exhausting but offers less enlightenment than a more sober approach might have yielded.”
John Serba from Decider noted: “Spending this much time with McAfee teetered to the wrong side of the line between fascinating and driving [Serba] nuts.” That earned the documentary a “Skip it” rating.
In short, some love Running With The Devil, while others hate it. The only way to figure out which camp you fall into is to tune in and watch it for yourself. The whole thing is an hour and 45 minutes long. It’s also the easiest way to find out what happened to McAfee, because we won’t be spoiling anything here.
Needless to say his jaunt through Central America was only scratching the surface of McAfee’s bonkers behavior in the years running up to his death.
Whether he was evading U.S. authorities over fraud and money laundering charges, multiple attempts to run for president of the United States, bizarre cryptocurrency promotions, and launching multiple “hack-proof” gadgets that were anything but.
Running With The Devil may not be a critical darling on par with Tiger King, but if anyone can give Joe Exotic a run for his money, it’s John McAfee. So be sure to check it out over the weekend.
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