‘2nd Chance’ Review: Ramin Bahrani’s Weirdly Arresting Documentary About the Dark Geek Pioneer of the Bulletproof Vest
variety.comOwen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic“2nd Chance” may be the best Errol Morris movie that Errol Morris never made. It’s the first documentary feature directed by Ramin Bahrani, who has often brought a real-world edge to his dramas (“The White Tiger,” “Chop Shop”), and the figure at the film’s center could be a true-life character out of Morris land — one of those rational-on-the-surface, only-in-America compartmentalized crackpot geeks whose hidden dark depths just about scream, “Look out, I‘m a walking nonfiction metaphor!”In “2nd Chance,” that character is one Richard Davis, who invented the bulletproof vest as we know it.
He did it in the 1970s, and the way he did it was very ’70s: by putting on a prototype version of his invention, grabbing a gun with both hands, and shooting himself in the chest.
He did that (and filmed it) 192 times — as a scientific demonstration, as a publicity stunt, and as a way to hawk his vests to U.S.
law enforcement and the military. Each time he did it, the bullets bounced right off him, and that became the basis of the Second Chance Body Armor Company, which he set up in a small town in northern Michigan, employing most of the people in the area, until he effectively became the king of the town.
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