Most people who are over the age of 25 probably remember the major event of June 17, 1994. It was the day that O.J. Simpson and A.C. Cowlings took the Los Angeles police, an army of TV helicopters, and 95 million Americans on a slow chase up the 405 freeway. He was supposed to turn himself in that morning and be charged with murdering his ex-wife Nicole and waiter Ron Goldman, a story that had riveted the country all week long.

But to sports fans like me, O.J. wasn't the only story. The Rangers had just won the Stanley Cup, and they had their ticker-tape parade in lower Manhattan that day. Then, while the white Bronco was slowly making its way to Brentwood, the Knicks and Rockets were at Madison Square Garden, playing the pivotal fifth game of the NBA Finals. Meanwhile, Arnold Palmer was playing his last-ever US Open round, the World Cup opened in Chicago, and baseball was chugging along despite the rumblings of labor strife.

Filmmaker Brett Morgen (who directed 'The Kid Stays in the Picture') tries to recapture that day in the documentary 'June 17, 1994,' part of the mostly-excellent 'ESPN 30 for 30' series. While Morgen does a mostly effective job of capturing the chaotic nature of the day, but he also tries to force feed chaos and drama into a day that didn't need any more of either. By doing it, he diluted the impact of what was a memorable day.

Morgen decided to do away with the traditional documentary conventions for this film; there was no narrator, no talking head interviews. Instead, he decided to inter-cut archival news footage of the day with raw audio and video from the various sports satellite feeds, along with audio of the police negotiator talking to Cowlings -- "I'm A.C. You know who I am, goddammit!" -- and Simpson by cell phone.

We see Chris Berman and Brent Musburger musing that no one is going to care about the Open because of O.J., a broadcaster at a Royals-Mariners game making "too soon" jokes about the murders, Bob Costas trying to figure out how to transition from news about the chase to talking about the game. The footage is cut in a manner that mimics a person changing channels, undecided on which momentous event he or she wants to watch.

For the most part, Morgen captures the powerful memories of the day. He illustrates well how this was one of the first cases of America being collectively fascinated by an event, prodded along by a breathless and all-watchful media. Remember, this was before the days of MSNBC and Fox News, when CNN was the only 24-hour news outlet out there. The World Wide Web was in its infancy. So this was an event mostly driven by local LA news stations with their ever-present helicopters, and helped along by the networks, who treated the story as if it was a presidential assassination attempt or a Space Shuttle explosion.

Morgen also does a good job of capturing the sports fan's dilemma that evening: watch the NBA Finals or watch the chase. I remember being at my friend Ken's new apartment, watching the game and actually being a little frustrated that they were cutting away so much to follow the Bronco (I also remember running out of gas on the way home that night, but that's another story). But I could understand why NBC seemed so confused that day; they didn't want to be behind on the story, but they also wanted to fulfill their contractual obligation to cover the game, which also happened to be a big ratings draw.

If Morgen had stopped right there, veering back and forth between the game and the chase, the hour would have been pretty powerful. But he decided to add the other events, even though they added little or no significance to the story.

I live in the New York area and remember the Rangers parade, but had no memory of it being that same day; I'm sure most people outside the area couldn't have cared less. The Arnold Palmer story was touching but didn't even enter most sports fans' radars that day, given the other events. And the looming baseball strike was a major story all summer long, but it really wouldn't come to a head until a month and a half later, when the players pulled the trigger on the strike that ended up canceling the World Series. It really had no impact on how people remembered June 17.

One thing that struck me about seeing the footage from that day was that it suddenly felt like a hell of a long time ago. And not just because of that silly mustache on Keith Olbermann or the fact that back then Robert Kardashian was known as O.J.'s lawyer and not Kim, Klohe, and Kourtney's dad. But it's a day that's stuck with a lot of people for sixteen years, and, except for the side stories, Morgen did a good job of helping people relive it.