‘Running With The Devil’ Offers An Unpleasant Look At ‘Real’ John McAfee

The following article discusses topics explored in the documentary, including substance abuse, mental health, gun violence, and suicide.

We all know, or have known, that guy. Not in your social circles, but still known; someone’s brother, cousin, or drinking friend. Whenever they have a captive audience, they’ll tell you stories of their exploits when they weren’t kicking around suburban Lowestoft. In the midst of cigarette smoke and the cheapest whiskey available, they’ll say they tried to join the army, but recruiters tell them they didn’t. too brilliant to waste in an infantry unit. Or they’re an off-duty bodyguard lying dormant because the Mafia is looking for them (don’t ask why, be quiet). Or they have just signed on to replace The Undertaker at The Wrestling™ and will be flying to the US in the near future. The intensity of their testimony can, for a brief second, captivate you, but you’ll soon realize that these men are more like Walter Mitty than Walter White. Now imagine what that guy would look like if they were given $100 million, and you’d get a pretty decent pen portrait of John McAfee in his later years.

Running with the Devil: The Wild World by John McAfee is a new documentary, which will air on Netflix on August 24. It exploits footage from the lost, unreleased documentary Vice , as well as films delivered by McAfee himself. It attempts to chronicle the life of the anti-virus software pioneer from when he was considered a man of interest following the death of his neighbor Gegory Faull in Belize, until his death in 2021. McAfee will spend the last decade of his life on the run from predators, both real and virtual, embroiled in a crypto scam, trying to run for President of the United States (twice) and loudly proclaiming announced that he refused to pay taxes, which attracted the attention of the IRS. Arrested in Spain for tax evasion, he died by suicide in his cell.

Devil divided into three raw sections, each told from the perspective of those in McAfee’s orbit at the time. Part one focuses on then-Evil behavior editor-in-chief Rocco Castoro and legendary photojournalist Robert King, who accompanied McAfee on his escape to Guatemala. Season two covers McAfee’s backstory and his relationship with ghostwriter Alex Cody Foster, with whom he sat in a series of interviews. Season three shows how McAfee will eventually reconnect with Robert King and asks him to be his personal biographer as he sails on his yacht, mostly around South America. The footage is interspersed with commentary from McAfee’s partners, as well as Foster, Castoro, and King.

Something is clear from both the footage and the contributors that McAfee is obsessed with truth, but you or I don’t always understand it. There are a number of times when he fixes his legacy, his reputation, his image, story and how he will be seen. However, the story is easy to understand, the truth is not clear and his behavior is erratic – while on the run, he will buy a disguise and then proudly tell everyone in the store his name. yourself and pose for a photo. McAfee’s behavior reflects the cult leader’s full-fledged deception, both in his use of charm and in his violent tendencies. More than once he was pictured or discussed pointing a gun at friends and allies because it felt no different than the joy of being a bully, or at least to remind all those in power. force.

However, if you’re looking for some fact or a coherent story to help you understand who John McAfee is, you won’t get it here. That’s not a criticism of the documentary – McAfee likes to hint at who he is without ever saying it outright and always dirtying his own water. There are scenes where he implies that he is responsible for the deaths of both his abusive father and Faull, but never pleases anyone. But it is equally clear that much of his courage disappears when he is faced with the real consequences for his actions. Much of the substance abuse was also created for him, which seems to have added to his paranoia and delusional thinking.

Much of King’s footage is low-resolution, unprocessed first-person digital video, although there are few shakycams here. It immediately takes the scene back to the beginning of the last decade, and sets the perfect backdrop for the millennial anxieties it creates. It also works here, as it captures the nasty stinky air in rooms that don’t have the windows open for too long. The rooms were littered with dirt and shards of tobacco, a half-empty bottle of whiskey lay on its side beside some bath salts and a loaded pistol. It helps capture the smallness of the man in his decline, especially when he is not against the death of light, but against the seemingly indifference of the world. I imagine that anyone trying to dock a yacht overseas with an automatic weapons officer and mercenary on board would be greeted with a cold reception from the local police. For McAfee, however, it’s all part of the grand conspiracy the world is arguing about around him, and sadly. But you can’t sympathize with him too much because of the trail of destruction left behind after he wakes up, and there’s little closure offered to his victims here.

If there’s one thing I wish the movie did better, it’s help the audience keep track of who and where, and everyone in the moment. I’m not always a fan of hand-held narrator documentaries, but this is the kind of movie that really needs you to have Wikipedia. That’s not to say it’s not worth a look, either if you know about McAfee or if the original story has passed you by. But if it’s missing something, it has enough sense of place and time to help you keep track of all the things McAfee did and when.

It’s funny, some of my colleagues have been seeing McAfee for years – including this one segment back in 2013. (At the time, McAfee said he was parodying and building on his infamous reputation while he made his viral videos. there’s probably more truth to it than he’s prepared to admit.) d even passed McAfee a few times at CES, often sitting alone in a sparsely attended corner of one of the smaller galleries. I often wonder if I should go talk to him, but there’s something about That Guy even when he comes across as his best behaved. I can imagine him putting his hand on my shoulder, fixing my dark eyes on me and telling a story full of mystery and fresh intrigue, though as it turns out, the truth is perhaps still wild.