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Reviews
Threat (2006)
Love it or hate it...
Threat is not a perfect film. It is a flawed hodgepodge of scenes that look like in some cases they were shot months if not years apart on whatever film stocks happened to be lying around. It is probably one of the least refined, most unglossy films to be released this decade. That said, the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts. If you think that a film is only revolutionary by blowing up buildings or spouting off Pennywise-lyrics as rhetoric, then this movie probably isn't for you. But, at a time when America is more polarized than its been since the Vietnam War if not the Civil War, a social critique like the one in Threat is probably more revolutionary than just about anything else on the DVD shelves today. All that said, it's pretty obvious that the film is from a neophyte film-making team and it is often too earnest (occasionally cringe-worthy). Plus it's ridiculously rough around the edges. But that's what you get when you see a guerrilla film that's been carved out of concrete. IMHO, some of the negative commentators here may have been looking for the wrong things in Threat. It is not a movie about being straightedge or being hardcore. It takes place in the hardcore scene and has characters who are straightedge, but it's a movie with complex characters who suffer for their flaws and for behaving like zealots. It's weird to see a movie with straightedge characters that isn't about being straightedge, since it is a little known subculture. But I haven't seen one ad saying "the first movie about straightedge!" so I don't think this film intends to sensationalize the culture one way or the other. This film shows characters going from being ordinary kids on the block to doing horrendous things, and I personally felt empathy for them the whole way. Threat is different from films like Menace II Society where everyone is apologetic at the end. Threat isn't about redemption, it's about accepting damnation, and that's pretty cool in this Hollywood world.
La battaglia di Algeri (1966)
Riveting, passionate, a love letter to revolution!
There will probably never be a more compelling film about revolution than Battle Of Algiers, and if you haven't seen this masterpiece then run out and get a copy of the Criterion DVD. Part of what makes it so incredible is that it was shot in Algeria soon after the revolution with members of the revolutionary party in the development team and in the cast, so it's a narrative film with a documentary's realness. What makes the film so powerful is the city and the people itself, you can sense the anger and the hope. And strangely the film can even make you empathize with the most diabolical acts of terrorism. Now, is it as unbiased as everyone makes it out to be? I don't think so. I think it is pretty favorable to the revolutionaries. Even though it shows sympathetic characters on the side of the French colonial forces, the presentation is still weighted heavily on the side of the revolutionaries. Regardless, it is a marvelous film.
The Weather Underground (2002)
Shows the complexity behind political violence
It's incredibly rare to see media depict the real root causes behind acts of "terrorism" during today's War On Terror. While Weather Underground does not glorify its subjects behavior, it does create empathy on the part of the viewer... and that alone is revolutionary at this historical point in time. The Weather Underground portrays a time in America's past when the populace was activated in a way that makes today's peace movement look like armchair intellectuals. Is it really just a draft that determines how aggressive our anti-war stance will be? That is pretty sad, since, if that is true, the anti-war movement isn't actually anti-war at all, it's just anti having to fight in a war. This is a documentary about a group of activists who made a true sacrifice, giving up their own freedom to try and stop a war.