Netflix has a captivating true-crime series in 'Evil Genius,' the wild story of a 'pizza bomber heist'
- Netflix has a popular and compelling new docuseries in its recent original series, "Evil Genius."
- The four-part series explores the wild criminal case surrounding the 2003 death of Brian Wells, a pizza-delivery man who died after robbing a bank in Erie, Pennsylvania.
- "Evil Genius" has a 73% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but it has drawn significant buzz from audiences as another captivating entry in Netflix's true-crime catalog.
Netflix has another captivating docuseries in its recent original series, "Evil Genius: The True Story of America's Most Diabolical Bank Heist."
Over four episodes, the series explores the criminal case surrounding the 2003 death of Brian Wells, a pizza-delivery man who robbed a bank in Erie, Pennsylvania. Wells died shortly afterward when a bomb strapped to his neck detonated in front of police.
The robbery was planned and executed by a group of four "fractured intellectuals," including a woman named Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong - a "middle-aged mastermind" grappling with mental illness - and her former fiance, Bill Rothstein, who are the focus of the series.
Diehl-Armstrong died in federal prison in 2017, serving a life sentence for planning the heist and murder.
But "Evil Genius" complicates the narrative of the heist and case with new evidence and a noteworthy confession.
Executive produced by Mark and Jay Duplass (the producers of Netflix's "Wild Wild Country"), "Evil Genius" has a 73% critic rating on the reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, but its 88% audience rating is reflective of the significant buzz the series has drawn since its release last Friday.
CNN's Brian Lawry had one of the more laudatory reviews of the series, writing, "With Evil Genius there's actually a sense of discovery, and a crime spree so unusual that it genuinely approximates a Coen brothers movie, down to the quirky assortment of culprits and stooges."
Watch a trailer for the series below, and find "Evil Genius" on Netflix.