First off let me just say two things. One, I thought all the actors did a good job in this film and that the rant that follows should not detract from the excellent job they did. Also the production values were excellent, nice camera work, good lighting, set design, etc. Secondly, let me say that any anarchist will find this movie an insulting sack of crap. Nor do I presume to be a card-carrying 'anarchist' myself, but I know enough of them and enough about them to say that this movie would absolutely p*** off every single one of them. Here's a few reasons why:
Every anarchist in the movie is some degenerate, idiotic, codependant, politically insignifigant drugged out sexual deviant. It did everything but show the "anarchists" feasting on live squeeling babies in terms of villification and demonization of anarchists and political activists in general.
Not that animal rights or corporate clearcutting are insignifigant political agendas, but this film portrays all anarchists as more interested in trees and minks than say, pre-emptive aggressive (resource) wars, media manipulation, rascism and classism, police brutality, government oppression, corporate / political coruption, or water rights. In fact at no point do any of the very real and very serious issues just mentioned get any attention at all. It seems to me that Jordan Susman went out of his way to pick the two most trivial items on the activists schedule today and focussed exclusively on them for the sake of portraying anarchists and activists in a negative light. Again, the people protesting for animal rights and trying to save our redwoods get all my sympathies and I hope for the best in those issues but it is my opinion that these issues got way too much attention in light of the complete absence of other political messages in the film.
I guess I should warn of '*SPOILERS*' but this film is such a piece of crap you won't care, so don't bother not reading the following lines because the 'plot' they expose is thin and contrived at best.
Some of the 'messages' in this film are disturbing.
Consider that the only 'decent' characters in this film are young republicans, police, and the fbi. Seriously, I'm not kidding.
Also, note that the lead character very rarely gets any sex until he gets in bed with a hot young republican, who happens to live in a household full of hot and horny young female republicans. At no point do any of them ever say anything ignorant or insulting about activists or anarchists, and they never show a single young male republican (my guess would be that this is because even this blatant propaganda film would have a hard time displaying well off young white republicans in a positive fashion). The message here is that when decent people become anarchists, they do not get laid. Apparently, only evil anarchists get any sex.
For example, the old hippy. After a brief period of 'developing' this character into a fullblown cliche of someone with an ineptly designed political agenda, poorly chosen social issues, and a wide array of tiedied t-shirts, the film reveals that he is a pedophile. And he is considered one of the "good" guys (by the end of the flick anyways). The only restraint that the producer showed in weakly portraying this character was that he did not have him 'ohmming'. I kept expecting it but never saw it in the film, thankfully.
The many ways the 'johnny black' character is villified is disgraceful. First he is shown as the only activist present with a plan and/or any motivation towards actual change at all... And then he leads the rest of the characters in a wildly rebelious spurt of ... slapping bumper stickers on stop signs... Ohhhhh. Then he is portrayed as this hacker-come-stalker as he regroups his 'troops' for a wild romp of... spiking redwoods. Apparently spiking redwoods was not quite villianous enough so they had him recruiting a bunch of whitepower nazi @$$holes to help him *BLOW UP THE CAMPUS MALCOMN X STUDENT BUILDING*. I'm sorry but that is the *last* place any anarchist I know is going to blow up. After numerous demonstrations of his sociopathic insecurity, he eventually succeeds in hooking all his troops on various hard drugs as he sets up a heroin (or cocaine, couldn't tell) distribution ring as he and his newly acquired whitepower chums make a bunch of bombs that wouldn't be as powerful as the Simtex this guy apparently has tons of anyways. Disgraceful, utterly disgraceful how poorly this character was portrayed.
Or the female anarchist, i forget her name. Message with her is, all female anarchists are home-wrecking whores who hold up their self esteem by manipulating men sexually.
Or "Double-D"... Codependant raver/skater boy. Has absolutely nothing in common with anything to do with anarchism. Was shown at one point skateboarding inside, in a crowded room, as he and his anarchist buddies played with turntables and bongs. Hard to see past all the cliches in that one scene.
Or consider the 'happy ending' of this film... Puck sells out his cohorts to the FBI for fun and profit, 200k in profit actually. Wow, who knew being a narc could be so fun and rewarding.
I could go on but thinking about this POS but it just p****s me off. This movie plays like it was funded by the GOP and filmed by COINTELPRO government spooks on location at an army base. If you watch this, and believe me, you shouldnt, I think anyone who has ever seen Reefer Madness and thought it was the most absurd piece of crap ever filmed will find there is a new film to fill those shoes.
To put in perspective how crappy and insulting this movie is, consider that I have been a frequent user of IMDB for years now, frequently visiting this site several times a day. I have never disliked a movie so strongly that I felt compelled to sign up for a user account and bitch about it online but I was willing to do that to set the record straight on this piece of crap. Jordan Susman I will never, ever force myself to sit through another of your "films" ever again under any circumstances.
Every anarchist in the movie is some degenerate, idiotic, codependant, politically insignifigant drugged out sexual deviant. It did everything but show the "anarchists" feasting on live squeeling babies in terms of villification and demonization of anarchists and political activists in general.
Not that animal rights or corporate clearcutting are insignifigant political agendas, but this film portrays all anarchists as more interested in trees and minks than say, pre-emptive aggressive (resource) wars, media manipulation, rascism and classism, police brutality, government oppression, corporate / political coruption, or water rights. In fact at no point do any of the very real and very serious issues just mentioned get any attention at all. It seems to me that Jordan Susman went out of his way to pick the two most trivial items on the activists schedule today and focussed exclusively on them for the sake of portraying anarchists and activists in a negative light. Again, the people protesting for animal rights and trying to save our redwoods get all my sympathies and I hope for the best in those issues but it is my opinion that these issues got way too much attention in light of the complete absence of other political messages in the film.
I guess I should warn of '*SPOILERS*' but this film is such a piece of crap you won't care, so don't bother not reading the following lines because the 'plot' they expose is thin and contrived at best.
Some of the 'messages' in this film are disturbing.
Consider that the only 'decent' characters in this film are young republicans, police, and the fbi. Seriously, I'm not kidding.
Also, note that the lead character very rarely gets any sex until he gets in bed with a hot young republican, who happens to live in a household full of hot and horny young female republicans. At no point do any of them ever say anything ignorant or insulting about activists or anarchists, and they never show a single young male republican (my guess would be that this is because even this blatant propaganda film would have a hard time displaying well off young white republicans in a positive fashion). The message here is that when decent people become anarchists, they do not get laid. Apparently, only evil anarchists get any sex.
For example, the old hippy. After a brief period of 'developing' this character into a fullblown cliche of someone with an ineptly designed political agenda, poorly chosen social issues, and a wide array of tiedied t-shirts, the film reveals that he is a pedophile. And he is considered one of the "good" guys (by the end of the flick anyways). The only restraint that the producer showed in weakly portraying this character was that he did not have him 'ohmming'. I kept expecting it but never saw it in the film, thankfully.
The many ways the 'johnny black' character is villified is disgraceful. First he is shown as the only activist present with a plan and/or any motivation towards actual change at all... And then he leads the rest of the characters in a wildly rebelious spurt of ... slapping bumper stickers on stop signs... Ohhhhh. Then he is portrayed as this hacker-come-stalker as he regroups his 'troops' for a wild romp of... spiking redwoods. Apparently spiking redwoods was not quite villianous enough so they had him recruiting a bunch of whitepower nazi @$$holes to help him *BLOW UP THE CAMPUS MALCOMN X STUDENT BUILDING*. I'm sorry but that is the *last* place any anarchist I know is going to blow up. After numerous demonstrations of his sociopathic insecurity, he eventually succeeds in hooking all his troops on various hard drugs as he sets up a heroin (or cocaine, couldn't tell) distribution ring as he and his newly acquired whitepower chums make a bunch of bombs that wouldn't be as powerful as the Simtex this guy apparently has tons of anyways. Disgraceful, utterly disgraceful how poorly this character was portrayed.
Or the female anarchist, i forget her name. Message with her is, all female anarchists are home-wrecking whores who hold up their self esteem by manipulating men sexually.
Or "Double-D"... Codependant raver/skater boy. Has absolutely nothing in common with anything to do with anarchism. Was shown at one point skateboarding inside, in a crowded room, as he and his anarchist buddies played with turntables and bongs. Hard to see past all the cliches in that one scene.
Or consider the 'happy ending' of this film... Puck sells out his cohorts to the FBI for fun and profit, 200k in profit actually. Wow, who knew being a narc could be so fun and rewarding.
I could go on but thinking about this POS but it just p****s me off. This movie plays like it was funded by the GOP and filmed by COINTELPRO government spooks on location at an army base. If you watch this, and believe me, you shouldnt, I think anyone who has ever seen Reefer Madness and thought it was the most absurd piece of crap ever filmed will find there is a new film to fill those shoes.
To put in perspective how crappy and insulting this movie is, consider that I have been a frequent user of IMDB for years now, frequently visiting this site several times a day. I have never disliked a movie so strongly that I felt compelled to sign up for a user account and bitch about it online but I was willing to do that to set the record straight on this piece of crap. Jordan Susman I will never, ever force myself to sit through another of your "films" ever again under any circumstances.