Who Killed the Montreal Expos? 2025 * 1/2 Stars

GROUNDOUT

I read somewhere on the Internet that the Montreal Expos stopped being the Montreal Expos in 2005. Um, that's like twenty years ago. I mean since then we've had the rise of social media, the 2008 financial crisis, COVID, and the emergence of the iPhone. And people are well, still bringing up those 'Spos, an MLB team that won 1 division title in 25 years and had a bunch of losing seasons. "Montreal is a baseball city". Uh, you really think so Pedro Martinez? Really?

Anyway Who Killed the Montreal Expos? is my latest write-up, a documentary that seems constructed accidentally by a hyena who wandered into the editing room amped up on angel dust. Basically what I'm saying is this thing is fast-paced to the point where its cinematic form is nearly butchered. No real coda, no first act, no cogent spiel, just a lot of Expos particulars thrown at the screen like splatter paintings. "It started to fall apart". Yeah absotively boss. Absotively. 

Directed by TV vet Jean-Francois Poisson and rather blinkered when it comes to the opinions of Expos fans almost everywhere, Who Killed the Montreal Expos? is well, about the downfall of said team and how they left "The Land of Maple" to head to good old Washington, D.C. to become the Washington Nationals (how random is that?). 

Lots of archives on and off the celluloid faster than a speeding bullet. A lot of bad translation voices over the French-spoken interviews without the use of subtitles. A sort of soap-boxed, one-sided view from the denizens of Montreal, blaming the world for the Expos not being a franchise anymore. And this despite the fact that the owners were bad with money, the stadium stunk up the joint, and um, the first Major League Baseball team outside the US couldn't win Jack "you know what". I mean this film shouldn't be titled Who Killed the Montreal Expos? I think it should be titled an elongated, "Who Really Caaaares". Natch. 

Written by Jesse Burleson