Let’s Get Frank (Political Documentary)
Picture:
C Sound: C Extras: C Documentary: B
Barney
Frank continues to serve in congress, is one of the Democrats’ most active and
known faces, and is still one of the only openly gay politicians in the
country. At one time, that would not
have been possible, but now, he is wildly successful. There is the possibility of doing an
interesting documentary about him and his career, but Bart Everly’s Let’s Get Frank (2003/5) uses his life
as an angle into the witchhunt that was the Clinton Impeachment scandal.
Frank had
his own scandal over his sexuality, but that was nothing as compared to the
insanity of the Republicans trying to get Clinton on anything. They have been after Frank longer, but not as
aggressively and not to the scale of the scandal in the middle of Clinton’s
Presidency. However, we slowly see the
common denominators, even though what Clinton did was nothing as compared to
what Republicans trying to nail him did.
We get archival footage and highlights that show Democrats did a better
job responding to the Republicans than the media would like you to remember and
that time plus the waste of time & money by Republicans was only the
beginning of how the country has been dragged down since then.
Holding
more truth every day, a conclusion (unintended) of the densely loaded 75
minutes is that this more than anything Clinton did is the reason we have the
financial, domestic and especially foreign (read terrorist) troubles we have
now because had Clinton not been distracted by the witchhunt, we would not have
been perceived as weak. That the
Republicans have continued this tone since is further proof, except now,
Americans are finally sick and tired
of the Extreme Right running the country into the ground. The result is a document of historical
importance that more people should see and is far more inarguable than anything
Michael Moore would ever come up with.
The 1.33
X 1 image is soft throughout, coming from the transfer of an analog video format
to MPEG compression. Color is off, as
well as detail, but some older professional NTSC video is even more
degraded. It is also valuable and very
vital to see in any form. The Dolby
Digital 2.0 sound is not as loud as one would wish and turning it up only
amplifies its problems. Extras include
trailers for other First Run titles, text biographies and on-camera interview
(and update) with Frank.
- Nicholas Sheffo
