A Filmmaker's Review: Autopsy: S5 E3 - "The Last Hours of Heath Ledger" (2015)

"The Last Hours of Heath Ledger" is the 3rd episode of the 5th season of "Autopsy" - a show that investigates the deaths of stars who died in somewhat unexplained, mysterious or confusing circumstances that seemed either completely out of character, or simply didn't add up. This one seems to be more about how Heath Ledger led his life and led up to his death than just dealing with his death when he actually died. When this was initially on television I think I missed the first half of it, because I live in England it was usually on Channel 5, including that one they did about Michael Jackson. But this one was on - and I think I missed about 25-30 minutes of it. So, as I now have Amazon Prime, I can watch all of them at my own disposal and when I have the money to pay for them.

Now, I remember when Heath Ledger died. I must have been about 12 or almost 12 since he died three days before my birthday. I knew who he was and I liked him a lot. He was one of those guys like a Brad Pitt kind of figure - all the girls liked him because he was very good looking. The problem was, I don't think he enjoyed being typecast as that kind of person - he wanted to be a versatile actor and so, that's what he did. I had watched "10 Things I Hate About You", "A Knight's Tale", "Ned Kelly" and "I'm Not There" (my favourite film of all time) by the time he died and so, I think everyone was fairly shocked because he seemed to be doing pretty well. He was only 28 when he passed away.

The show starts with dealing with the most essential fact that Heath Ledger's death was occurring not at one particular moment, but over the course of about a year or more. It starts when he reaches the height of his fame in 2001/2 and then continues through his Oscar Nomination, which he wasn't very happy about receiving since the press hounded him. And then, through his portrayal of the Joker until he actually died after the filming of "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus" - which was his final film. The saddest fact is that Heath Ledger's demise started from the very point he became famous and just got worse and worse until he actually dropped dead. That is very upsetting.

Everyone who talks in the programme is either a professional or someone who actually knew Heath Ledger. The one thing I didn't like though is at the beginning of the programme, it tries to suggest that there may have been some intention to his death. There is absolutely no hope in hell according to all of the sources provided by the programme, that Heath Ledger committed suicide. Even the doctors who were at the scene and treated his body, the pathologists who did the autopsy and the people who laid him to rest refuted the claim that he had killed himself. I won't take a mark off for it, but it is something that I would like to see refuted more in the documentary because they leave it hanging in the air for a long time.

The next parts of the documentary go through his lifestyle and not only do they talk about what has gone wrong in his life to cause his sleeping problems, but the other thing that they go through is that fact that he has had these problems for a long time. There are numerous things wrong by the time Heath Ledger dies and each and every thing in his system in gone through in incredible detail. The doctors come to a conclusion of why he was taking things like painkillers, sleeping pills, anti-anxiety medication etc. There were two things found in his system that required to be prescribed to him and would've been recorded on the American Health Data Records because they were so strong. These were not recorded in Heath's case and there is still little information as to how he got his hands on them without that prescription. It is suggested that if he hadn't have taken these incredibly strong painkillers - he maybe would've lived.

In conclusion, the documentary itself is a great example of a thorough investigation into one of the most mysterious deaths in the history of Hollywood. The fact that Heath Ledger didn't overdose was, too many, a confusing prospect because most people die from overdosing not from mixing. From experience, mixing medications just makes you very sick and gives you a stomach ache most of the time. It was however, these two strong and strange painkillers - usually used to treat cancer patients and surgery survivors - that ultimately killed Heath Ledger. And though he hadn't taken too much of anything in particular, he sure as hell took too much of everything at once.