When she started working on “UNTOLD: The Fall of Favre,” a new Netflix documentary that follows some of the most disgraceful parts of NFL Hall of Famer Brett Favre’s career, director Rebecca Gitlitz told The Guardian that she wanted to explore whether some people are above the law.
“Have they been told so many times that whatever they do they can get away with it? Stuff like that, where history repeats itself, I wanted to see how that happens,” she said.
One person who seems to think Favre has been getting a pass is former Atlanta Falcons quarterback, Michael Vick, who famously received a 23-month prison sentence for charges related to his involvement in a dogfighting ring in which pit bulls were killed.
During his interview for “UNTOLD,” Vick points out the hypocrisy in the way he was treated when compared to the quarterback who spent 20 years in the NFL, including 15 as quarterback of the Green Bay Packers.
Favre was fined $50,000 but not suspended by the NFL in 2010 for allegedly sending suggestive text messages to a female sideline reporter who worked for the New York Jets. And most recently, he managed to escape criminal charges in 2022, even after text messages put him at the center of a scandal in his home state of Mississippi in which money that was intended for welfare recipients in the state went to pay him for speaking engagements he never fulfilled and an athletic facility at the University of Southern Mississippi, where his daughter played volleyball at the time, instead.
“People go to jail for stealing money every day. If it’s that important, the right institutions can get involved. But, you know, some people are untouchable in certain ways and that’s just the way it is,” Vick says in the film. “I just think that’s kinda how the system is rigged. You know, some situations have to be played out in court. Some have to be played out in the public.”
U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) agrees that the system was rigged in Favre’s favor and calls him out for taking money from the people in his state who need it most.
“You take money intended for the poorest. I don’t know how he sleeps at night,” he says in the film.
According to PEOPLE, Favre denied a request to be interviewed for the doc.
Although Favre didn’t receive the punishment many people believe he deserves, some are glad the film shines a light on something other than his throwing arm.
“At least this documentary plans on holding him accountable because the law sure didn’t,” wrote someone on YouTube in the comments of the trailer video.