Untold: Raygun: Breaking Badly Review
Director: Chapman Way and Maclain Way
Date Created: 2026-09-01 21:49
3.5
Untold: Raygun: Breaking Badly Review: Directed by Chapman Way and Maclain Way, with Australian breakdancer and academic Rachael Gunn, better known as Raygun, at the centre of the story. The film is approximately 72 minutes long and is one of many stories in Netflix’s collection called Untold that revolves around unique and often scandalous people within the world of sports.
Untold: Raygun: Breaking Badly Review
There are cases when the individual involved ends up being larger than the event, and that is precisely how things unfolded in this case with Raygun. In the course of the 2024 Paris Olympics, her breakdancing routine managed to turn out to be one of the most notorious moments of the Games and not because of any victory.
Instead, her unique dance moves managed to end up becoming memes, which were then followed by some rather nasty consequences, as misinformation, conspiracy theories and outright personal attacks ended up following Raygun long past the time of her actual participation in the competition. This is the point when Netflix’s Untold: Raygun: Breaking Badly starts to become more interesting than the viral video clips.
As a viewer before seeing the Netflix Untold: Raygun: Breaking Badly documentary, it would be hard not to think about the viral sensation Raygun. Her performance at the Olympics has become one of those instances in the world of sports where everyone who saw it was completely taken out of the sport itself. People who probably never paid any attention to breaking in competition knew all about her. Memes, conspiracy theories, and criticism were rampant on the internet regarding how she even managed to qualify for the Olympics.
One of the most helpful parts of the Netflix documentary Untold: Raygun: Breaking Badly comes from how it portrays the connection between Gunn and breaking. From the documentary, it is evident that she did not just happen to learn breaking before the Olympics. She underwent training, had dedication, and put in a lot of effort to become who she is. It makes one see how the story of Gunn takes on new meaning with the help of the video of the Olympic performance.
This difference is important because the internet has reduced a whole individual to just seconds of a video clip. After the clip went viral, the entire conversation revolved around whether her actions were silly enough to be the subject of ridicule. The documentary urges the viewer to think about how it feels to be at the receiving end of such scrutiny. This is where the movie succeeds, in my view.
Indeed, it is more interesting to explore what happened after the Olympics than during it. Gunn, the athlete who participated in the Olympics, was instantly reduced to a joke, a laughingstock, and a subject of ridicule in less time than it takes to say so. The film tries to explore the emotional ramifications of what happened and how the backlash affected Gunn. There is something troubling about the speed at which public mirth turns into something very different when everyone joins in.
At the same time, this was the moment when I became disappointed in how much the film should have challenged its subject matter. Breaking Badly is attempting to protect Gunn from the harshest aspects of the backlash she received, which is completely understandable. There is, however, a distinction between criticising online bullying and calling into question her participation in the Olympics.
Netflix’s Untold: Raygun: Breaking Badly documentary deals with the controversy around her selection and even the allegations that involve her husband Sammy and the process of selecting someone as their representative. But based on the story presented in this documentary, not all of these allegations were true. The trouble with the documentary is that it raises the questions but does not dig deep into the main question of why Raygun was selected out of all others.
In my opinion, this is the greatest weakness of the documentary. It is not necessary for me that the documentary Untold should judge Raygun or prove anything about her being there or not there. However, since the whole controversy was based on the very issue, I hoped to see some deeper analysis of the selection procedure. Even though the documentary has access to other break dancers and views, it is sometimes easier to explain the backlash than to analyse its cause.
This makes certain choices of the editing particularly fascinating. In the scenes depicting the competition where Gunn managed to qualify, the performances of the rest of the dancers get time to showcase their skills, while Gunn’s performance has another way of being shown. The comparison is left for the audience to do on their own. I was glad to see that the film did not neglect the competitive aspect of the story altogether, though it failed to make the more general conclusion.
Even so, Breaking Badly achieves the difficult task of humanising Raygun as opposed to presenting him as an internet meme. The latter parts of the documentary attempt to restore Raygun’s identity. The story begins to veer from the embarrassment associated with the Paris incident to the realisation that being ridiculed should not define the rest of one’s life.
There is even an element of surprise in the documentary when Richard Branson comes on board to assist Gunn as she struggles with the aftermath of the embarrassing experience. Richard Branson’s inclusion could very well have been seen as superfluous celebrity inclusion. However, in the greater context of the discussion about getting help at the right time, his role becomes relevant because of what he can inspire in someone else.
This Untold: Raygun: Breaking Badly film does not manage to give full justice to the complexity of its topic. There is an amazing documentary film hiding within this one, one that could have delved deeper into the topic of competitive breaking, the process of getting chosen for the Olympics, the pressure on athletes, and what made Raygun’s routine such a sensation. This movie seems more concerned with helping its subject recover from the scandal than analysing it thoroughly.
Netflix Untold: Raygun: Breaking Badly Review: Summing Up
Overall, it is a good documentary about an interesting topic, but it is at its best when it makes us consider more than the viral image to appreciate the person behind it. However, despite my appreciation for that perspective, what I wanted from this film was even more exploration and less mystery. While Breaking Badly is able to remind us that there is a person behind every viral joke, it sometimes fails to give us sufficient context on how that joke came to be.
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