‘Cooking Up Murder: Uncovering the Story of César Román’ Netflix Series Review - Another Horrible Docuseries

First things first, the title of the new Netflix docuseries Cooking Up Murder: Uncovering the Story of Cesar Roman is utterly misleading. The show, consisting of three dull episodes, doesn't uncover anything. It dispenses interviews, statements, and recordings that merely tell you one thing: Roman is guilty. If you had followed the case while it unfolded in 2018, you might have understood this thing about the culprit. The documentary has nothing new to offer to the audience. The interviews with the victim's mother and other lawyers can also be summed up in one line: Roman is an arrogant psychopath who murdered Heydi. This same information consistently comes to the foreground even when Roman defends himself. The way he deflects blame makes you think, "Huh, so everyone is bad except for him?"

It's depressing that true-crime shows like these have become common on Netflix. The directors sensationalize the whole issue to excite their target audience. The audience, too, swallows the subject and regurgitates it online on discussion forums without paying attention to the cheap aesthetic. The talking head interviews, the text messages, and the CCTV recordings are displayed clumsily with the sole intention of delivering tasteless shocks, not a neutral viewpoint that Cooking Up Murder tries to offer by giving us statements from both sides. People accuse Roman of various things (abusive behavior, killing dogs, creating fake stories), and Roman explains the event through his perspective. Still, it's easy to see on whose side the director, Roman Parrado, is.

"I might be a total son of a bitch, but that doesn't make me guilty," says Roman at one point. Gloria, Heydi's mother, recounts her first meeting with Roman, and it's mainly filled with criticisms regarding her daughter's choice. But did Gloria hate Roman from the beginning? What exactly she didn't like about him? Did Gloria not like the way he carried himself with an inflated chest? Or did she grow to loathe him gradually? Gloria asserts that her daughter was being manipulated and that she could never harm anyone. Roman states that Heydi wasn't a meek woman. How was Heydi, really? That's a question you cannot answer accurately.

Cooking Up Murder (I hate this title) first builds Roman's castle by telling us about his achievements. In the third episode, everything is destroyed through proof that his life was built on deceit and lies. His "King of Cachopo" acclaim, too, turns out to be bogus. Why is Roman so obsessed with fame? Why does he lie? His sister doesn't offer any meaningful insight. The show is content with providing us with a picture of a monster, though it also ends up satisfying Roman's desire for popularity. Thanks to Netflix, more people will now know about Roman. A show like this would make any fame-seeking psychopath happy. They just want to be remembered by as many people as possible. This is the main reason why I hate documentaries like these. Also, they are made horribly.

Final Score- [2/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times