The Movie:

Aaron Swartz was a bona fide computer genius who contributed to the development of the web feed format RSS when he was only fourteen and co-funded the still hugely popular social news site Reddit a short time later. He was so young when he gave seminars to adults about his groundbreaking work that it was impossible to see his face as he spoke behind his laptop on the podium. After selling Reddit to Conde Nast for seven figures, Swartz was well on his way to becoming one of Silicon Valley's billionaire power players. However, there was one problem: Swartz wasn't interested in making money, he wanted to work towards social change and equality.

In America, if you're a genius who genuinely isn't interested in making as much money as you can humanly get your hands on and then more, people freak out and don't know what to do with you. How dared he have goals and aspirations beyond becoming a billionaire? How dared he aspire to bring information to the poor and disenfranchised for no other motivation than to better the world as he knew it and open the floodgates to equal opportunity innovation? Even after making his first million, Swartz rejected a life of luxury, instead dedicating himself to making crucial amount of information available to the public. Information, by the way, that was supposed to be public domain.

He was justifiably mad that the public was expected to pay for research documents that were supposed to be available to everyone. The idea that a corporation can willingly block access to vital scientific research documents from people who could potentially use them to cure serious diseases or invent a piece of groundbreaking technology, simply because they couldn't afford to access them, enraged him to no end. So in 2011, Swartz was arrested for "stealing" JSTOR's database from an MIT server, a database that was supposed to be public to begin with.

By their own admission, the government sought to make an example out of Swartz by threatening him with an outrageous amount of jail time and making his life a living hell during the court proceedings, which in turn heavily contributed to his suicide in 2013. It's hard not to agree with Swartz's friends and colleagues, when they express their outrage over the fact that none of the people responsible for the financial meltdown of 2008 saw any jail time while the government decided to make an example out of someone whose only motivation was to enable the disenfranchised to serve the common good.

The Internet's Own Boy, Brian Knappenberger's film about Aaron Swartz, might be a technically unremarkable documentary that would probably work better as a PBS special rather than a theatrical feature, but that shouldn't take away from the importance of its subject matter and the anger that it should instill in everyone who cares about social equality and the technological advancement of our species. Relying mostly on interviews from Swartz's friends, family and colleagues, who do a good job presenting the many complex issues Swartz worked for in layman's terms, Knappenberger creates a balanced work that focuses on Swartz's personal life and his extremely fast development as a programming genius almost as much as his legal troubles with the government. This approach humanizes the film's subject, even though it causes the running time to drag a bit.

The DVD:

Video:

The Internet's Own Boy consists almost entirely of intercutting of recent interview footage and older photo and video material from Swartz's life, going all the way back to home videos of him as a toddler. The old footage is transferred with as much clarity as possible, even though the editor relies a bit too heavily on the Ken Burns effect, and the HD photography looks bright and clean.

Audio:

There are two audio options, Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0. This is a documentary that relies almost solely on interviews, which come off very clearly on the 5.1 transfer. The 2.0 option has some problems with the score being too loud, which gets in the way of understanding the interviews. So even if you're listening to it through TV speakers, you might want to pick the 5.1 option.

Extras:

Deleted Scenes: Two minutes of interview footage that's stringed together.

We also get a Trailer.

Final Thoughts:

What I previously mentioned about the free access of information that Swartz tried to get out there and sacrificed his life for one day possibly leading to innovation that can change the world for the better was not just a hypothetical statement. About a week after Swartz's death, a 14-year-old kid who invented an early diagnosis system for pancreatic cancer said that his discovery would not have been possible without Swartz's actions. The Internet's Own Boy might not be particularly entertaining, and it doesn't really need to be, but it's an important documentary for all of us to watch.

Oktay Ege Kozak is a film critic and screenwriter based in Portland, Oregon. He also writes for The Playlist, The Oregon Herald, and Beyazperde.com