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Directed by: Nickolas Perry and Harry Thomason Starring: A whole bunch of people The Hunting of the President tries to reveal the organized, well-funded, and aggressive right-wing movement that attempted (and to some extent, succeeded) in destroying the political life of Bill Clinton. Unfortunately, what could've been a very fascinating documentary is over-run with too much emphasis placed on people who stood up for Clinton, and the impact the "hunting" had on their lives. I found the first 20 minutes of this movie incredibly confusing -- they introduce about a dozen players in Clinton's early scandals, and you're stuck keeping track of the numerous lawyers, journalists, and investigators, all who play a small part in the story. The opening is very disjointed, briefly reviewing who these people were, their connection to the Clintons, how they paticipated (on one side or another), and then never mentioning the majority of them again. The movie spends the vast majority of its time on Whitewater and Ken Starr, which is where most of the interesting material is. If you didn't already hate Ken Starr, you will now, probably even if you dislike Clinton. Sadly, there's long interviews with people who supported Clinton (especially with Susan McDougal) detailing how their role in the Independent Council's investigation ruined their lives. I don't see how McDougal's stories of male prisoners masturbating and urinating on her forwards the proposed point of the movie -- it's merely to continue convincing us just how bad these lawyers were. Her teary interviews drag on and as the focus shifts away from the Republican attack machine, and the movie loses its interesting topics in the shuffle. The pro-Clinton message of the film is all the more apparent when Monica Lewinsky isn't mentioned until 1hr15mins into the movie, which runs under 1hr30mins. Arguably the biggest event in this "story", his actual impeachment is very briefly discussed, and merely summed up as the end result of the Republican's devious efforts. As much as I'm sick of hearing about her, I'd think if you were making a film about the attempts to discredit and ruin Bill Clinton that you'd spend a fair bit of time here. It's because this is the one part of the story where Clinton was proved to have actually done something wrong. Morgan Freeman's narration is rare, I don't much care for his voice, and he pretty much disappears after the halfway point. There are a lot of people being interviewed, and it can be hard to keep tabs on them. There is also some interesting time spent on the Washington press world, and how their thirst for the next Watergate squashed any reasonable and objective viewpoints. The movie tries to add sizzle with a lot of stock footage: if someone being interviewed refers to a group of people being lead by someone, the movie cuts to some dated footage of a sheppard herding sheep; if someone refers someone else as a crook, we're treated to a short clip from a 30's gangster film. When they're interviewing people who are obviously holding strong biases, they should let their comments stand for the viewer's own judgement. By accenting them with clips, they affirm the interviewee's viewpoints and sacrifice any sort of apparent objectivity. If you had any doubts this movie is an editorial defense of Bill Clinton, the ending summary quickly shreds them. Although it has nothing to do with the topic, its final moments are spent summarizing the events of the 2000 election and some redistricting scandal that apparently gave Republicans more power. It ends with the phrase: "The beat goes on..." printed on the screen. Yikes. The various people we've met throughout the movie get their summaries too, with most of the anti-Clinton folks getting sarcastic comments tacked onto their pieces. Clinton's post-presidency is simply put as "After leaving office in 2000, Bill Clinton ___<insert a paragraph about all he's done for AIDS research>___". Yikes. So, it's got a lot of interesting stuff in it, and I know I shouldn't of expected some wonderfully objective documentary, but I still felt a little let down. I wanted a detailed account of a shady group of Republicans spending a decade trying to destory the president, and instead I got a little bit of that, and a whole lot of emotional stories from pro-Clinton people and a brushing over of his actual wrong-doings. The movie lacks from any oomph or really strong moments. There's a lot here I already knew, but I'm a Canadian who didn't give a poo poo about anything politics in the 90's. And still the majority of the stuff I was familiar with. There's not a lot of clear, undeniable moments where the film makes an impact on you. We all knew Ken Starr was an partisan rear end in a top hat who had no place being on a independent council, and this movie reveals why... but there's no revelation, no "wow" moments, no parts of this movie where you'll be genuinely gripped by something that it has to say. I didn't hate it, I've got about 3 other movies I could be watching and I was never tempted to shut it off and watch something else. It's really only worth seeing if you're strongly polarized into a pro or anti Clinton stance. RATING: 3.0 PROS: Occasionally revealing (to me, at least) look at some of the forces behind Whitewater and Clinton's impeachment CONS: Hard to follow at times, too many people to keep tabs on, an obvious pro-Clinton editorial ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0391225/ Bloated Pussy fucked around with this message at 05:18 on Jul 20, 2004 |
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Jul 20, 2004 05:01
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 21:46 |
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Found it pretty poorly done, very cliche cinematic elements (a "snapshot" sound every time they showed a still picture, a "typing" sound every time text went on the screen). Message was often incoherent, seemed like a lot of just this-guy-knew-this-guy-who-knew-this-guy-who-knew-this-guy-who-is-now-so-and-so for most of it. Interspersed with "funny" clips from the 1930s to act out descriptions of voiceovers and interviews (i.e. "So then the police came..." => image of Keystone Cops). "Funny" bits don't jive with depressing music and overall tone. Only interesting parts were Susan McDougal's explanations of treatment by Ken Starr & Co., and reporters talking about the role of the media in stirring up and sustaining the anti-Clinton attitude, each wanting to break their own Watergate and win their little awards, even if there was no story there. Poorly done, poorly argued, overall just plain boring. Not recommended for viewing or anything else. This is coming from a liberal who believes most of the main points, too, though this film has nothing to do with why I believe them. I give it a 1.0, in part because this is material that they could have done so much with and yet they produced this piece of crap. i_am_the_hydra fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Jul 23, 2004 |
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Jul 23, 2004 21:03
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