{"id":876134,"date":"2026-09-01T11:10:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T11:10:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/876134\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T11:10:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T11:10:18","slug":"untold-raygun-breaking-badly-review-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-new-netflix-documentary-on-rachael-gunn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/876134\/","title":{"rendered":"Untold Raygun: Breaking Badly review: Everything you need to know about the new Netflix documentary on Rachael Gunn"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Louise<\/p>\n

September 1, 2026 \u2014 6:13pm<\/p>\n

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Untold Raygun: Breaking Badly \u2605\u2605\u2605<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes this all feels like a really wild dream. It just still feels surreal to me. It\u2019s like I\u2019ve been charged with a crime. What is happening? What am I doing? What have I done? What the f— did I do?\u201d<\/p>\n

And so begins Netflix\u2019s Untold documentary about Dr Rachael Gunn<\/a> \u2013 aka Raygun \u2013 the Australian Olympian breakdancer whose performance in Paris in 2024, in which she scored zero points<\/a>, made her a worldwide celebrity, meme generator and figure of ridicule in one fell swoop.<\/p>\n

\"DrDr Rachael Gunn, aka Raygun, in the Netflix documentary Untold Raygun: Breaking Badly. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s billed as the behind-the-scenes-story of Raygun\u2019s rise to infamy, a chance for her to tell her side of the story. Sure, it is all of that, but it\u2019s also a kooky love story \u2013 between Gunn and her husband, Samuel Free, aka B-boy Sammy Sex, who are both convinced what she did at the Olympics was the ultimate expression of creativity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was struck by the beauty of her performance,\u201d he says, as footage is played of Raygun\u2019s final battle \u2013 kangaroo hop included \u2013 against Lithuania\u2019s Nicka.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Breaking<\/a><\/p>\n

Sure, beauty is one word for it, but is it the right word? And that\u2019s essentially what this documentary tries to do: rewrite history a little bit, by telling Raygun\u2019s side of the story \u2013 not inaccurately \u2013 but very sympathetically. It\u2019s wildly entertaining, if you enjoy watch-through-your-fingers TV, and pretty much one-sided.<\/p>\n

Directed by John Henion, it\u2019s very much a first-person story with little intrusion from anyone asking questions. We hear Gunn and Free\u2019s side of the story, we hear from Gunn\u2019s parents, Russell and Beverly, who described her as free-spirited, and we hear from two of Raygun\u2019s rivals, and critics, B-girls Tinylocks (Sammy) and Flix (Leah Clark) and Lowe Napalan, the president of Ausbreaking, who was with Raygun at the Olympics.<\/p>\n

\"RaygunRaygun competing at the Paris Olympics.AP<\/p>\n

What emerges is a portrait of a woman caught in a mess of her own making. She looks like a kangaroo frozen in the headlights, while wearing a terrible tracksuit. Yes, she legitimately qualified \u2013 even her critics conceded she was the best breaker on the day at the Oceania Breaking Championships in 2023 \u2013 but it was a freefall from there, with Raygun admitting she was under-prepared and didn\u2019t have the \u201cbig moves\u201d of her rivals. Despite starting a training regimen, she admits to missing a lead-up competition and changed her routine only weeks before the Olympics.<\/p>\n

Gunn quite clearly knew she was in over her head (the kangaroo and sprinkler moves were designed as a desperate late bid to try to squeeze a point out of one of the judges), so why didn\u2019t she quit? And that\u2019s the problem with the celebrity documentaries that Netflix has made their bread and butter<\/a>: they are interested in a version of the truth, not the whole the truth, the uncomfortable truth.<\/p>\n

There is no journalist or producer asking the questions. No one holding her to account. No one asks Raygun why she didn\u2019t quit, why she was \u2013 bizarrely \u2013 training at the \u201cthe local courthouse\u201d (which was Sydney\u2019s Downing Centre Local Court) and why she didn\u2019t find a new coach if she was struggling so much. We don\u2019t hear from a judge or any expert explaining her moves or the scoring. We are left to guess.<\/p>\n

It was the same story in the recent David Beckham documentary<\/a>, and then Victoria Beckham\u2019s documentary<\/a> as well. We never heard David directly discuss his alleged affair, nor did we hear anything about the family break-up in Victoria\u2019s documentary. We are trading truth for access. And that is because the Beckham documentaries, like many celebrity documentaries, were made by their own production houses. Untold Raygun: Breaking Badly, meanwhile, includes Stephanie Scicchitano \u2013 managing director of Born Bred Talent, who represent Raygun \u2013 among its executive producers.<\/p>\n

Instead, we hear Raygun talk about the pressure she felt in the weeks before the Olympics, the media commitments and the attention, all of it contributing to her taking antidepressant medication.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"What<\/a><\/p>\n

I think we can all agree what happened to Raygun after that infamous day in Paris was terrible. The memes swiftly descended into pretty nasty stuff, including conspiracy theories that she had lied her way into the Olympics or that her husband was involved in the selection committee, none of which is true. And there is truth to the point that no man received that level of backlash. Can you even name her male Australian breaking teammate at the Olympics? Or what he scored?<\/p>\n

\"Rayguin\u2019sRayguin\u2019s husband Samuel Free, aka Sammy Sex, Untold Raygun: Breaking Badly.<\/p>\n

In the end, the documentary gives Raygun another 70 minutes in the spotlight \u2013 something, despite all protests, she seems quite comfortable in. Will it result in some type of comeback? Who knows! She officially retired after the Olympics and took a voluntary redundancy from her role at Sydney\u2019s Macquarie University in February this year. Surely there must be plans for some type of media career, and this documentary is the first step on the path to redemption.<\/p>\n

Will it work? If there\u2019s one person who believes it will, it\u2019s her husband, B-boy Sammy Sex. He is Raygun\u2019s greatest fan, and isn\u2019t that what we all want in life? Someone in our corner? Yep, even if they\u2019re doing the sprinkler.<\/p>\n

Untold Raygun: Breaking Badly is now streaming on Netflix.<\/p>\n

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\"LouiseLouise Rugendyke<\/a> is the National TV editor and a senior culture writer for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"September 1, 2026 \u2014 6:13pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":876135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,134,344],"class_list":["post-876134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=876134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/876135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=876134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=876134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=876134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}