Steal This Movie (2000)
Review by Doc Ezra
Film:
DVD:

Written by Bruce Graham, based on the book "To America with Love: Letters from the Underground" by Abbie and Anita Hoffman and "Abbie Hoffman America Rebel" by Marty Jezer.
Directed by Robert Greenwald
Starring Vincent D'Onofrio, Janeane Garofalo, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Kevin Pollak, Donal Logue, Kevin Corrigan

Features:

• Commentary by Vicent D'Onofrio & Janeane Garofalo and director Robert Greenwald
• Theatrical trailer
• "Making Of" featurette
• Behind-the-scenes footage
• Storyboard-to-film comparisons
• Production artwork
• "Pig for President" spots
• Music promos
• Interviews

Anamorphic: Yep.

My Advice: Steal it.

Abbie Hoffman was, love him or hate him, a radical of the highest order, a political thinker and activist that practiced what he preached, and wasn't afraid to take his lumps from the Powers That Be when he'd had his say-so. A self-proclaimed "orphan of America," he got his start driving African-Americans to the polls, and met his end in a death that sources say was "ruled a suicide" (which means the law has accepted that story, but the rest of us have not).

With that kind of intriguing figure lurking a mere few decades in history, it was perhaps inevitable that a film be made about Abbie. I have to say I'm glad it was made by this group of people, hopefully preventing a much worse cast and crew from attempting to pull the story off. Vincent D'Onofrio turns in one of his finest performances, and Janeane Garofalo turns in her hands-down finest, as the Hoffmans. The supporting cast all do very solid jobs, as well, making for a well-acted film all the way around. Most notable goes to Kevin Pollack, who plays Hoffman's long-suffering (and pro bono) attorney, and plays it with the sly deviousness of a man tweaking the system from the inside.

Much of the film is drawn from events and discussions contained in the letters the couple smuggled to each other (often through incredibly long and circuitous routes) during the six years that Abbie had gone underground to escape pursuit and harrassment by the federal government. As such, the story revolves primarily around the couple, and tangentially intersects the lives of the circle of radicals that helped Hoffman found the Yippie movement. Herein lies what is perhaps the film's greatest weakness. In attempting to cover Hoffman's career from his earliest days in the South to his emergence from the underground, the film is forced to cover too much ground too quickly. Major events like the attempt to levitate the Pentagon, or the campaign of Pigassus for President, become two-minute montage sequences with little detail, inevitably ending with some cop's truncheon busting Abbie's head. While said events did typically end in this fashion, it seems a shame that the biggest moments in Hoffman's career as a radical look like little more than footnotes.

This is not to say that the story is dull. Not by any stretch. Part of the film's structure is provided by the attempts of the Hoffmans and Abbie's lawyer to get some press on the government's questionable activities regarding Abbie. To this end, they enlist an unwitting journalist to tell the tale of Abbie's life, hoping to bring him to the realization that the government has initiated a program with the express purpose of silencing or discrediting political dissidents in the United States. The program, known as CoIntelPro (Counter Intelligence Program), originally targetted the anti-war movements and the Black Panther party, and used any tactics necessary, from disinformation and intimidation to outright harrassment and illegal wiretaps, search and seizure, and unlawful incarceration, carried out by the FBI, CIA, and complicit local law enforcement agencies. The movie is basically told through the reporter's encounters with Abbie's friends and family, each of whom recounts some event from Abbie's career that is portrayed as a flashback.

Director Robert Greenwald makes some interesting (and occasionally dubious) choices in assembling the movie, and occasionally the quick-cutting style and frenzied camerawork are a bit distracting. And if you're going to use phony voice-overs of Nixon, Hoover, or anybody else, there are plenty of talented impersonators that would be happy to do it for you. Because they sound too phony, the effect is more laughable than satiric. There are moments of brilliance, though, that shine through the MTV stylings. As Abbie is being pummelled by a riot squad, wearing his trademark "Stars & Stripes" shirt, a cop remarks that people died for that flag, and it shouldn't be defiled. Greenwald than injects a snippet of footage that I believe is Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, yodelling bad country music while wearing matching "Stars & Stripes" shirts. It's a nice juxtaposition, if a little heavy-handed, but occasionally the more absurd elements in a true story need to be played up, or nobody will ever believe them.

The disc itself is a great package. Steal This Movie! has a better set of features than I've found on any single-disc presentation. Interviews, commentary tracks, discussions with the art directors, old presidential campaign spots for Pigassus, and tons of pre-production documentary stuff round out the disc, and all of it is pretty interesting stuff. Add that to an anamorphic presentation with full digital sound options, and an already decent movie is a great DVD.