Godfather Movie Review - 2016; Obama's America

I didn't particularly want to see this movie.  It looked like it would simply rehash a bunch of stuff that I had already seen or read.  But I was sitting around tonight with nothing better to do, so I figured what the hell.  Might as well throw my ten bucks toward the neverending battle between boycotts and buycotts.  My side is usually decent at the buying part.  Giving up something that we enjoy, simply to exert political pressure, seems to be the province of the left.

The movie, as expected, was a rehash of things that I already knew.  It told the story of Obama's weird communist hippie upbringing, in a far more fair manner than I would be inclined to use.  It told of his father's disgusting existence as a human being, in a far more fair manner than I would be inclined to use.  It told of his mother's manipulative and conniving tendencies, in a far more fair manner than I would be inclined to use.

Far from a hit piece on the president, as some have called it, this movie is one long excuse for the president.  Of course he's terrible at his job, but it's not his fault, you see.  His fucked up background, according to the film, explains why he has no connection to the America that many of us know and love.  A lot of time is spent explaining the ways that the people in Kenya and Indonesia view the West in general and the United States in particular.

The most poignant discussion of the whole film centers on a conversation with George Obama - Barack's half brother.  George gained prominence when news stories showed him living in a ramshackle hut in Kenya, reportedly subsiding on only a few dollars a month.  The filmmaker tries to get George to comment on his brother's (bastardized) retelling of the biblical reference to being one's brother's keeper.  George, to his credit, doesn't take the bait.  "He has his own family to worry about," says the president's brother.  Not that this excuses our mind-boggling hypocrite of a president.  It doesn't.  If you want to lecture me about being my brother's keeper, then at least help your own actual fucking brother get out of poverty.  But it does reflect well on George.

George Obama also spends a couple of minutes speaking about his view that oppression by white colonialists is not the reason for Kenya's struggles.  The country's problems, according to George, are entirely self-created.  In summary, George's worldview is diametrically opposed to his brother's.  According to the filmmaker, this explains why George has never received any help from Barack.  I'm not sure that I am convinced of this conclusion, but it would be one way to explain the fact that our moron president's staff haven't convinced him to write a check for a few bucks and get his brother into a decent home.

On the foreign policy front, the filmmaker makes a few provocative arguments.  Try this one on for size.  Four prominent Middle Eastern dictators have unleashed military force on their civilian populations during the Obama presidency.  Obama stepped in to depose two of them.  With respect to the other two, he couldn't even be troubled to lend rhetorical support to the protestors/rebels/whatever.  Two of the four dictators had been cooperative with the United States in recent years.  Two had not.  Which two are still standing?  The more anti-American ones, right?  Again, I'm not prepared to accept the filmmaker's conclusion - that hating America will spare you the wrath of Obama - but it is one explanation for something that has been heretofore unexplained.

I think my biggest disappointment with the movie is that it was sold as a look forward to what we can expect after a second Obama term.  The part of the film dealing with the '2016' aspect is only a few minutes at the very end.

We're told that our weak foreign policy will lead to a "United States of Islam" in the Middle East.  I can see the filmmaker's point, but he's also ignoring the fact that those 14th-century throwbacks are likely to start fighting each other as soon as they stop fighting us and/or Israel.  It's an intriguing thought process, but not really backed by solid supporting evidence.

Then we're told that our crushing debt burden is unsustainable.  Duh.  If you doubt this, then you're either someone who was deprived of oxygen during childbirth or you're a Nobel winning economist for the New York Times.  Either way, the amounts of debt that have piled on this country under The One™ are simply staggering.  Nobody in history had borrowed as much as President Bush.  Obama's best deficit has been roughly three times as bad as Bush's worst deficit.  That's reality, dude.  And the filmmaker's interpretation has nothing to do with it.

I suppose, in summary, that it was a decent film.  A lot of preaching to the converted, but that's what you get when it comes to politics.  I don't suspect that anyone's mind will be changed, but the narrative does provide some food for thought.  If you, unlike me, think Obama is intelligent but you wonder why he does what he does, then maybe you'll have your answer.  Or, at the very least, you'll have one possible answer to consider.  I think the guy is simply stupid, but that's another topic for another movie.

One side note that is probably apropos of nothing - The theather was about 2/3 full.  I went with my younger brother.  We were 2 of the 6 in the room without white hair.  The other 4 were a group of black folks sitting down toward the front.  In other words, it looked like your typical Tea Party gathering.  After the credits began to roll, someone toward the back started clapping.  Several people followed suit.  I don't clap at movies - ever - but this one certainly wouldn't have moved me to applause in any case.  The four black folks, on the other hand, started clapping enthusiastically.  I suppose it's as much a reflection on my own prejudices as anything else, but I did not expect to see this.  Take it for what you will, but I found it interesting.

Overall - decent film with an interesting level of investigation, but not a great feature-length production.  3 out of 5 strings