
The Stringer’ Review: Who Took the Historic Vietnam War Photo Known as ‘Napalm Girl’? A Riveting Documentary Says the Answer Lies in a Conspiracy
By Owen Gleiberman
According To The variety Conspiracies and cover-ups are a dime a dozen in fictional movies (thrillers, political dramas, you name it). But when a documentary unravels a conspiracy, it can take on the kind of hushed suspense those films used to have and rarely do anymore. (The heyday of conspiracy cinema, the ’70s era of “All the President’s Men” and “Chinatown” and “The Conversation” and “The Parallax View,” was about 10,000 conspiracy movies ago.) The Stringer” is a documentary mystery about a deadly serious subject: the true authorship of the famous Vietnam War photograph, taken on June 8, 1972, in the town of Trảng Bàng, that showed the aftermath of a napalm attack — a 9-year-old girl named Phan Thį Kim Phúc running, naked, toward the camera, her arms outstretched ...