[6] Dong cited a near-miss in 1977 with homophobic violence as an impetus for the project;[2] the teenagers whom he and his friend largely evaded attacked two priests, Jim Brown and Douglass McKinney, shortly afterward just outside of the Castro District, San Francisco.

[a] Donald Aldrich and his friends Henry Earl Dunn and David McMillan went to Bergfield Park, a known gay hangout in Tyler, Texas on November 30, 1993.

[15] Corey Burley and two friends – allegedly Freddie Earl Thorton and Frederick Eugene Kirby, both of whom were charged in the incident as well – went to Reverchon Park on October 26, 1991.

U.S. Army Sergeant Kenneth Junior French walked into Luigi's Restaurant in Fayetteville, North Carolina on August 6, 1993, and began firing indiscriminately.

[3] Additionally, Dong included anti-gay rap, television coverage of the AIDS epidemic, and speeches by politicians such as William Dannemeyer.

[29] Initially, the film didn't include footage of the victims' corpses, and test audiences found themselves disturbed by their sympathetic responses to the killers.

[30] Dong stated that one of his goals with the documentary was to show that the men who committed the crimes included in the film could very easily be a next-door neighbor,[31] but that after the test audience response, he needed balance to convey the intended message.

Johnson also commented on the similarities between the fact that the crimes portrayed in the film are committed in darkness and society's judgments that force gay people to hide.

[39] Seventeen minutes of the follow-up with Johnson is included in the 2007 PBS POV DVD boxed set release, along with interviews of Frank Chester, David Feikema, and Frederick Kirby.

[41] The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures held a public screening of the documentary at the Ted Mann Theater on December 14, 2021, a week after the murder of Nikai David in Oakland, California.

[45] The Advocate's Mark Huisman pointed out the lack of hyperbole in the film and noted specifically the danger of an idea of one group having superiority over another permeating a society.

[46] Sean P. Means, writing for The Salt Lake Tribune, gave the film a full four stars, and made certain to mention that the common thread in each instance isn't the sexuality of the victim, but rather the murderer's feelings towards what they perceive to be homosexuality.

[28] Deborah Peterson for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch mentioned Dong's "restrained" presentation as well, noting it as an effective method of relaying the casual indifference with which the killers apparently view their crimes.

[47] A syndicated Associated Press column printed in the Greensboro News & Record acknowledged that the minimal narration Dong provides in the film forces the viewer to develop their own opinions.

[48] Joe Baltake, writing for The Sacramento Bee and rating the film at 3.5 out of 4 stars, echoed Means' opinion regarding the way "gay-bashing" has been woven into U.S. culture.

Baltake found Dong's lack of verbal editorializing in the film to be most effective in examining the culture and politics that led to the murderers' belief in the acceptability of their actions.

[3] Terry Lawson of the Detroit Free Press, who gave the film three of four stars, acknowledges the lack of verbal editorializing from Dong, but points out that the excerpts included from sermons given by Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Robert Schuller - among others - focus on "inflammatory anti-gay remarks" that would likely be considered hate speech if made in a less specialized forum.

Chun also provides several quotes from Dong with respect to what he wanted to achieve: telling the stories "accurately" and "humanizing" the perpetrators of these crimes.

[55] Richard von Busack of MetroActive pointed out that the inclusion of Falwell, Robertson, Lou Sheldon, Reed, and Dannemeyer is to show "the theoreticians" and the danger of such unchecked rhetoric when others are willing to kill in practice of those ideologies.

[56] The Bay Area Reporter's Gary Morris found the inclusion of the rhetoric from Falwell and Robertson entirely apropros, pointing out that "the devaluation of gay lives" is one of the major themes of the documentary.

[57] Ernest Hardy for LA Weekly calls the murderers monsters while praising Dong's choices not to have a "prodding" narration or "histrionic" score to allow the perpetrators to "humanize themselves".

[60] Andy Klein, writing for Houston Press, was pleased with the questions raised by the film, specifically the role of religion in "forming reactionary social attitudes".

[61] The Los Angeles Times' Kenneth Turan felt that Dong had conveyed the humanity of the killers well, forcing audiences to face the complex nature of these men and their actions in the broader context of society.

[62] Writing for The Progressive, Bob Blanchard noted that what Dong shows in the film is a United States with a level of hatred so ingrained that it is "the template rather than the exception", and taught as a matter of course to be passed on to the next generation.

[63] Writing for The Motion Picture Guide, 1998 edition, Eric Monder rated it four stars and noted it is an examination of "social influences and individual responsibility".

[1] The Boston Phoenix's Gerald Peary notes that the lesson from watching Licensed to Kill is that the motives don't fit a stereotype.

[13] Walter Goodman of The New York Times pointed out that the answers provided by the inmates might be dishonest, and that they are filled with excuses ranging from being a previous victim of pedophilia themselves to a reliance on religion.

[30] The Washington Blade's Greg Varner mentioned specifically that the hour-long presentation made it clear that the hatred of homosexuals is, at the very least, sanctioned - "if not directly inspired" - by leaders in both religion and politics.