McAfee is introduced with his much younger girlfriend Sam (who is interviewed later), before the narrative drops that part of the story about halfway through, picking up with McAfee about five years later, in 2019, as it moves from one crisis to the next.
Russell clearly wants to use the grainy imagery and close, personal exposure to McAfee’s ramblings to replicate an idea of the man himself, but there’s only so far that can go without weaving more useful context into The mixture. Instead, “Running With the Devil” takes detours to tell the stories of those who followed McAfee, adding little to the larger plot beyond providing temporary respite from McAfee’s madness.
In the latter part of the film, the list of narrator sorts expands to include Alex Cody Foster, a self-proclaimed ghostwriter who hung out with McAfee and recorded lengthy interviews with him.
“Maybe he was a murderer, but I love good stories,” Foster says.
McAfee was clearly many things, and yes, a murderer could have been one of them. “Running With the Devil” can be forgiven for choosing not to bother getting bogged down in a juicy thread of wrestling with human morality, but as presented it’s just too messy. to qualify as a good story.
“Running With the Devil: The World of John McAfee” premieres August 24 on Netflix.