Running With The Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee follows the antivirus founder’s impending doom fueled by drugs and violence. The latest of Netflix’s disastrous documentaries covers Mcafee on the run after he was suspected to have murdered his neighbour in Belize, 2012. The documentary is directed by Charlie Russell and spans 1 hour 45 minutes. 

Netflix describes the documentary as:

Raw footage and interviews of the fugitive tech pioneer/suspect John McAfee, peels the layers of ’his truth’ while a decade on the run.

-Running with the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee Review Does Not Contain Any Spoilers-

John McAfee, the creator of the antivirus software, asked a film crew to document his journey while he evaded the authorities of Belize, Guatemala and a Mexican Cartel as well. For people unversed with his extraordinary tales, McAfee made headlines back in June of 2021 after being found dead in a Spanish Jail, shortly after the court had authorised his extradition back to the US for tax evasion charges. 

At the beginning of the doc, John McAfee terms himself as “James Bond meets Scarface with a little Indiana Jones”, which goes on to show his delusion and narcissistic behaviour at the very start. There’s a scene in Running With The Devil where John is barricaded by Guatemalan authorities, and the FBI, among other powerful figures, outside a luxurious hotel. It seems this is where the fun comes to an end and the atrocities of prison time begin.

In the chaos and panic of it all, he demands a cigarette and whips out a flute to play. You might think this is the first and last of absolutely unbelievable things that might happen before an arrest, but a camera crew managed to capture it all, the only way our sensory organs would submit to believing it. 

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Personally, the shots felt pushed and staged, like those by amateur actors who hope to make it big in Hollywood by ‘being themselves.’ Pretentiousness became the central protagonist of the movie, while baseless enterprises of plotlines posed as the antagonist. The whole bit with the former Attorney General of Guatemala was one such plotline if I might call it so.

He spent his last decade Running from persecutors, both real and imaginary, tried to run for US President twice and boasted about not paying taxes to the world. McAfee was running, but whether it was from sanity or authorities, we might never know. 

The story is roughly divided into three parts, each told from the perspective of the people closest to him during the time. The first one harnesses footage from the unreleased Vice documentary On The Run with John McAfee to Guatemala, captured by photojournalist Robert King and then Vice Editor-in-Chief Rocco Castor. This section can be termed mildly interesting as it spurs us into the chronicles of John McAfee’s life.

The second discovers McAfee’s backstory via a ghostwriter, Alex Cody Foster and lastly, when John reconnects with Robert and asks him to become his personal biographer. The footage is interspersed with his girlfriends’ voiceovers, as well as Robert and Rocco, which feels more like a fictionalised retelling of his life rather than reality. 

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“I’m in your shop, believe it or not”, is something only a dangerously unhinged narcissist on the run would say proudly. The entire time watching the documentary, I felt like being coerced to be part of a poorly constructed play where the actors could be seen dressing into different characters. It had a lot of loopholes and jump cuts with no explanation later.

For instance, how did he manage to survive for 5 years post escaping authorities in Guatemala, where he was stationed during the time and whether all of this was concocted to make a bored 70-year-old man’s life more interesting? The first and only stroke of emotional vulnerability is depicted at the end of the documentary about John’s father and the physical torment he inflicted on both his mother and John himself to postulate some balance, but even that is snatched away quickly. 

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Final Verdict: Running With The Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee

Devil or a Saint? Well, the answer or an indication is in the title itself. If you were hoping to find answers about who John McAfee is and whether or not he killed his neighbour and other people (you’ll find out), you wouldn’t get a straight answer. His erratic behaviour presented truths, but none to anyone’s satisfaction, neither the audience nor the authorities. His substance abuse might also indicate the paranoia that took over him at times, but the extent of it will only make you scratch your head, not quench an itch.

He ached for the truth to come out, but never at his expense. 

Running with the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee is streaming now on Netflix.