Have You Seen This Man? Review, John Ruffo on the Run

What Have You Seen This Man? is all about without spoiling the show

Have You Seen This Man is the story of John Ruffo who, after being sentenced to a 17-year prison term for his connection to a scam, disappears. Ruffo’s whereabouts are unknown but alleged connections to the FBI, Russia, and maybe even the Italian mafia have investigators wondering where in the world he has gone.

In this three-part series, we learn about his alleged crimes, the different sides of Ruffo, and where he might be.

What was good about Have You Seen This Man?

This documentary jumps right into the meat of the story. Sometimes there is too much background at the start. In this case, we know immediately what happened.

Have You Seen This Man goes by quickly in what amounts to three episodes around 40 minutes each. There isn’t a whole lot of extra. The length was perfect.

We do get a documentary with a lighter tone. It reminded me a lot of D.B. Cooper: Where Are You? This is a somewhat fun documentary even though Ruffo ended up screwing over his family big time by not turning himself in.

What could have made Have You Seen This Man? better?

As fun as the documentary was, I have a hard time describing what the actually crimes he committed were. We do know he was a fraudster in multiple ways. Maybe I just wasn’t paying close enough attention or didn’t attend enough law school classes to grasp what it was that he did wrong. Let’s go with both.

Have You Seen This Man doesn’t slow down which is a con for this documentary. It did seem rushed and for no real purpose. From the introduction, we already know some of the possible outcomes. There was no twist they could throw at the audience to have us want to tune into the next episode.

The documentary doesn’t quite know what it wants to be at times. There is a mix of interviews, news footage, and some re-enactments with a narrator speaking over it. Leaning more heavily on one aspect might have made it more memorable. The way The Anthrax Attacks included far more re-enactments, for instance, helped it tremendously. Have You Seen This Man uses a narrator unnecessarily at times. She didn’t really help move the story along enough to be there.

Is Have You Seen This Man? worth watching?

This was a very middle-of-the-road documentary for me. I feel like it could have been much better. Having recently watched Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street, I have an example of what a flashier version of this could be.

I will give Have You Seen This Man a recommendation, but there are far better ones out there to spend your time on. This could have been told in an episode of 20/20 instead.

Overall Score: 5 out of 10

There isn’t anything memorable about Have You Seen This Man. It was an enjoyable experience to watch. I’ll forget about it the next time I sleep.