Variety | ‘Tower’ Review
Variety
The impulse to make sense of tragedy has given rise to any number of films — from Kim A. Snyder’s “Newtown” and Tim Sutton’s “Dark Night” to the forthcoming Hollywood blockbuster “Patriots Day” — all made in response to recent episodes of mass violence in America. For the most part, the intent of such a near-immediate reckoning is to be raw and immediate rather than definitive. But “Tower,” a formally and thematically ambitious documentary that revisits the 1966 sniper shootings at the U. of Texas at Austin, powerfully channels the terror and confusion of that terrible August day while also achieving the somber weight and authority that can only come with time and distance.
