John McAfee
Self (archive footage)
Running with the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee
2022
1h 45m
Director: Charlie Russell
Overview
Through raw, revealing footage and interviews with fugitive tech pioneer John McAfee, this documentary uncovers new layers of his wild years on the run.
Cast
Reviews
5 min readThe Man Who Ran Too Fast
I keep thinking about the way John McAfee moves in the footage. Not the grand gestures—the wild-eyed interviews, the shirtless press conferences, the gun-toting social media stunts—but the small, restless shifts. A twitch of the fingers.
A glance over the shoulder that lingers a beat too long. There’s a moment in Running with the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee where he’s sitting in some dimly lit room, the camera too close, and he leans forward just enough to let the light catch the sweat on his upper lip. It’s not fear, exactly.
More like the physical manifestation of a man who’s spent years outrunning something he can’t quite name. The film doesn’t tell us what he’s afraid of. It just lets us watch him vibrate with the effort of not looking back.
Charlie Russell’s documentary doesn’t so much unravel the mystery of John McAfee as it does amplify it. That’s not a failure of craft—it’s a choice, and a smart one. McAfee, the man who built an antivirus empire and then spent the last decade of his life flirting with infamy, was never someone who lent himself to easy narratives.
He was a tech visionary, a libertarian firebrand, a fugitive, a murder suspect (the charges were later dropped), a presidential candidate, a conspiracy theorist, and, ultimately, a man who died in a Spanish prison cell while awaiting extradition to the U.S. on tax evasion charges. How do you contain all that in 105 minutes? You don’t.
You let the contradictions breathe.
The film’s greatest strength is its refusal to sanitize its subject. There’s no attempt to rehabilitate McAfee’s image, nor is there a heavy-handed moralizing about his downfall. Instead, Running with the Devil operates in the gray, assembling a collage of archival footage, interviews, and McAfee’s own recordings to create something that feels less like a traditional documentary and more like a fever dream of a life lived at full throttle.
Russell, whose previous work includes The Seven Five (a gripping doc about police corruption), knows how to let a story tell itself. He doesn’t need to editorialize when the footage does the work for him: McAfee, in one clip, casually admitting to bribing Belizean officials; in another, ranting about government surveillance while surrounded by armed bodyguards; in yet another, sitting alone in a jungle compound, his paranoia almost palpable.
Full Plot (Spoilers)
Spoiler warning
This section contains the full plot, including major story reveals. Overview above stays spoiler-free.
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsThe Wild Ride Behind Running with the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee
John McAfee’s life was a spectacle of excess, paranoia, and controversy—so it’s no surprise that the 2022 documentary Running with the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee dives headfirst into the chaos. Directed by Charlie Russell, the film chronicles the software mogul’s rise and fall, from his invention of McAfee Antivirus to his later years as a fugitive, conspiracy theorist, and self-proclaimed libertarian firebrand. But what’s the real story behind the documentary itself? latestnetflix.com's read is that here’s what we know—and what remains shrouded in mystery.
From Tech Titan to Tabloid Fixture
The documentary’s core premise is clear: McAfee’s life was a whirlwind of brilliance and self-destruction. After founding McAfee Associates in the late 1980s and creating one of the first commercial antivirus programs, he became a tech millionaire—only to spiral into a life of drugs, legal troubles, and bizarre public stunts 
. Running with the Devil doesn’t shy away from the darker chapters, including his 2012 flight from Belize amid murder allegations (charges he vehemently denied) and his eventual arrest in Spain in 2020 on U.S. tax evasion charges .
What’s less clear is how much of McAfee’s own perspective made it into the film. The documentary stars McAfee himself, but with his death in a Spanish prison in June 2021—ruled a suicide by authorities, though his family and supporters have questioned the official narrative—it’s unclear how much of his final testimony was captured before his passing . Did the filmmakers get the unfiltered McAfee, or was his input shaped by legal constraints? The evidence doesn’t say.
A Mixed Reception and Unanswered Questions
Running with the Devil premiered to a lukewarm critical response. On SensCritique, the film holds a modest 5.6/10 rating based on 55 votes, with viewers likely split between fascination and fatigue over McAfee’s antics . Rotten Tomatoes lists the documentary as starring McAfee, but beyond that, details about its reception—including audience reactions or deeper critical analysis—are scarce in the available snippets .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6pIUyXjzpQ
One lingering question: How did the filmmakers navigate McAfee’s legal troubles during production? With McAfee facing extradition to the U.S. and his reputation as a fugitive, securing interviews or footage must have been a logistical nightmare. The documentary’s trailer hints at dramatic moments, but whether it delivers on the hype—or simply rehashes well-trodden tabloid territory—remains unverified .
The Unconfirmed Gaps
For all its wild subject matter, Running with the Devil leaves some key details in the dark. Here’s what we don’t know:
- Behind-the-scenes drama: Were there clashes between McAfee and director Charlie Russell? Did McAfee’s legal team influence the film’s narrative? The evidence doesn’t say.
- Unseen footage: McAfee’s life was a goldmine of bizarre moments—from his 2016 presidential run to his cryptocurrency ventures. Did the documentary uncover new material, or did it rely on archival clips? No snippets confirm either way.
- McAfee’s final words: Given his death mid-production, did the filmmakers include his last interviews, or was the project completed posthumously? The timeline is unclear.
The Bottom Line
Running with the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee promises a deep dive into one of tech’s most infamous figures, but the available evidence leaves as many questions as answers. With a middling rating and sparse details about its making, the documentary feels like a missed opportunity to fully dissect McAfee’s legacy—or at least, a project constrained by the chaos of its subject’s life.
For now, the film stands as a snapshot of a man who lived—and died—by his own rules. Whether it does justice to his story, however, is still up for debate.
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.