Casey Jordan, Dan Abrams, David Hascom, documentaries, Dorian Wright, Eric Adams, Giovanna Blatterman, Investigation Discovery, Jamie Peck, Joe Di Pasquale, Joseph Kenny, Kelly Wirtz, Luigi Mangione, Philip Klein, R.J. Martin, true crime, TV, Wendell Potter, Who Is Luigi Mangione, Yolanda Wilson
February 19, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Rhonda Schwartz and Brian Ross
Culture Representation: The documentary TV special “Who Is Luigi Mangione?” features a predominantly white group of people (with a few African Americans) talking about the case of Luigi Mangione, the wealthy American engineer who has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and other charges related to the gun-shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City on December 2, 2024.
Culture Clash: Mangione, who was 26 when he was arrested in December 2024, has indicated that Thompson was a target because of health insurance companies’ controversial decisions to deny coverage to their customers.
Culture Audience: “Who Is Luigi Mangione?” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in coverage of this high-profile case, but this documentary offers no new information and comes across as sensationalistic and superficial.
“Who Is Luigi Mangione?” can’t even be bothered to comprehensively answer the question in the title. This low-quality documentary is just a rehash of information already told in other quickly made documentaries and news reports about Luigi Mangione. Adding to the tackiness, the documentary has an unidentified actor doing a terrible imitation of Mangione by narrating Mangione’s messages that were posted on social media.
Directed by Rhonda Schwartz and Brian Ross, “Who Is Luigi Mangione?” clocks in at just about 45 minutes, but even that is too long for the scant amount of worthwhile information in the documentary. Mangione was born on May 6, 1998, in Towson, Maryland. He came from a wealthy family and did not have a criminal record before his arrest.
By now, the basic facts of the case are widely known. A man, who law enforcement says is Mangione, was caught on surveillance video pointing a gun at and shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson as 50-year-old Thompson was walking in front of the shooter outside the entrance of the New York Hilton Midtown hotel in New York City, on the morning of December 2, 2024. Thompson was in New York City for a conference with investors. The shooter fled on a bicycle.
After surveillance photos of Mangione were publicly revealed and identified him as the prime suspect, he was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on December 7, 2024. Mangione was brought back to New York City and pleaded not guilty to charges of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, criminal weapon possession and stalking. An investigation revealed that during the murder, Mangione had been in New York City and had been staying at a hostel under an alias and using a fake photo ID. At the time this documentary premiered on TV, Mangione was in a New York City jail and denied bail as he awaits his trial.
The reactions to his arrest have been very divisive. Many people have condemned Mangione as a cold-blooded killer, while others have praised him because they think he’s a hero for going after corrupt practices of health insurance companies. A disclaimer at the beginning of the documentary says that all persons are innocent until proven guilty. So far, Mangione has not given interviews since he was named as a suspect and arrested for these crimes.
“Who Is Luigi Mangione?” does what all of the other documentaries about him have already done and shows a lot of the same photos and videos of him. These Luigi Mangione documentaries give the same easily available background information on Mangione and talk about how he had a privileged life. With all the media scrutiny about his life, no media outlet so far has been able to extensively say much about his personal life except that he had health issues but he was also athletic and liked to travel and hung out with some people close to his own age during these travels.
Mangione is consistently described as someone who was outgoing, friendly and highly intelligent in his school years. He was valedictorian of the Class of 2016 at Gilman School, a private Baltimore high school for boys. In 2020, he graduated cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a bachelor of science degree in engineering for computer engineering and a master of science degree in engineering for computer and information science. Mangione relocated to Honolulu, Hawaii, after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania.
Mangione had ongoing spinal problems that got worse after he had a surfing accident in 2022 that caused him to have spondylosis, a degenerative condition of the spine. He later had spinal surgery and had other medical treatments for this condition. Because of his family’s wealth, he could afford to get the medical treatment that he needed. But according to his social media posts, Mangione was in a lot of physical pain, had episodes of “brain fog” (feeling confusion or loss of memory), and expressed deep resentment about the way insurance companies refuse to give coverage or make it difficult for people to get the health care that they need.
Mangione was never affiliated with or had UnitedHealthcare insurance, but because UnitedHealthcare is the largest health insurance company in the U.S., he apparently thought that UnitedHealthcare was the biggest villain in America’s health insurance issues. Mangione made comments on social media ranting about capitalism and how insurance companies in the U.S. care more about profits than people.
Mangione also expressed an interest in the manifestos of convicted serial killer Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, who died of rectal cancer in prison in 2023. Kaczynski was a highly educated recluse who had anti-capitalist political views that motivated Kaczynski’s murders when he targeted people to get bombs that he mailed to them. Mangione’s social media posts will no doubt be used as evidence in the prosecution’s case against Mangione.
Just like the other documentaries so far about Mangione, “Who Is Luigi Mangione?” has mostly interviews with people who’ve never met Mangione and just repeat public information about him. The few people interviewed in these documentaries who did know Mangione all make generic statements about how shocked they are about him being arrested for these crimes. By all accounts, Mangione “went off the grid” and isolated himself from June 2024 until he surfaced in New York City in December 2024. His mother reported him as a missing person in April 2024.
People interviewed in this documentary who knew Mangione are his friend R.J. Martin, who reveals nothing new; Mangione family friends Giovanna Blatterman and Joe Di Pascuale; author/social media influencer Gurwinder Bhogal, who says that he met Mangione in person because Mangione said he was a fan of Bhogal’s work; and Dorian Wright, who was Mangione’s yoga instructor in Hawaii. Bhogal comments on Mangione: “He believed that people were increasingly living automated lives.” Bhogal says he last heard from Mangione in June 2024. Blatterman comments on how Mangione has apparently changed drastically since she knew him as a kid: “It just doesn’t make sense … Something happened to his mind.”
Wright repeats the same descriptions of Mangione that others have already had. Wright also mentions that Mangione always caught the attention of women in Wright’s yoga class. The documentary has widely known information that the notoriety of this case has resulted in Mangione having numerous female admirers who seem infatuated with him because of his good looks, his wealth and now his “bad boy rebel” image. Considering all the tabloid coverage of Mangione, it’s somewhat surprising that people who dated Mangione in the past aren’t speaking out to get their moment in the spotlight.
By all accounts, Mangione did not personally know Thompson. Thompson grew up in Jewell, Iowa, and he spent most of his life living in the Midwest. Thompson, who graduated from South Hamilton High School in Jewell, was valedictorian of the graduating Class of 1993. He was also valedictorian of his graduating Class of 1997 at the University of Iowa, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration. In 2004, he joined UnitedHealthcare, which is headquartered in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. He became CEO of UnitedHealthcare in 2021.
TV journalist Dan Abrams from Law & Crime Network is an executive producer of this documentary. Abrams openly expresses disgust by the notion that Mangione deserves praise. Abrams then complains in the documentary that when he talked about this opinion on his live SiriusXM radio show, he got backlash from listeners. The documentary becomes less about answering, “Who is Luigi Mangione?,” and becomes more about what random people who don’t know him think about Mangione and the U.S. health care system.
In the documentary, Abrams sanctimoniously says that people tend to forget the murder victim in this case, but the documentary interviews only two people who say they knew Thompson. Philip Klein, a former bodyguard of Thompson, doesn’t have anything memorable to say in the documentary except that it was “the biggest mistake in the world” for Thompson not to have any security personnel with him during that fateful walk outside the New York Hilton Midtown hotel.
Kelly Wirth, who describes herself as a Thompson family friend, says she knew Thompson when he was a boy. Wirth gives the expected praise of Thompson and his family. And apparently, she hadn’t been in contact with him in decades, because she still talks about him as if her most recent memories of him are when he was a kid.
Jamie Peck, who founded the December 4th Legal Committee to raise funds for Mangione’s legal defense, says in her interview for this documentary: “I don’t think it’s possible to be the CEO of a for-profit health insurance company and not have blood on your hands.” Another interviewee who expresses contempt for UnitedHealthcare is Yolanda Wilson, a bioethics professor who says that UnitedHealthcare nearly denied her coverage for a hysterectomy and would have denied her the coverage if her doctor hadn’t advocated for her.
Wendell Potter, a former health insurance company executive (the documentary never says where he used to work) states that he was in the health insurance industry for about 20 years and has now become an outspoken critic of the industry. Dr. David Hascom, an orthopedic spine surgeon, comments on what he thinks Mangione experienced for any spine surgery, even though Hascom has never met Mangione. Another person interviewed in the documentary is criminologist Casey Jordan, who gives dramatic commentary as if she’s doing a recap for a soap opera.
The only two New York City public officials interviewed in the documentary are New York Police Department chief of detectives Joseph Kenny and New York City mayor Eric Adams. Kenny sticks to the facts and repeats information that the NYPD already released to the public and the media. He’s really the only person interviewed in the documentary who has close personal knowledge about the charges and evidence against Mangione.
Adams gets preachy and comments on all the young people who support Mangione: “We’re seeing a radicalization of our young people. We’re seeing our young people believing that the answer to a problem is by using violence. And I think it’s the wrong way to go.” Considering that Adams is dealing with his own controversies that include accusations of corruption, he might not be the best person to give lectures about ethics.
And speaking of investigations over ethics, it’s briefly mentioned in the documentary that Thompson was under investigation for illegal insider trading at the time of his death. It’s unknown if Mangione knew this information when he wrote angry rants about UnitedHealthcare because this documentary is so shoddy and ineffectual in investigative journalism. In fact, “Who Is Luigi Mangione?” is incompetent at delivering any meanfingful insight except to show viewers what it looks like for a documentary to jump on a tabloid bandwagon and have nothing interesting to add.
Investigation Discovery premiered “Who Is Luigi Mangione?” on February 17, 2025.