Director: Robert Greenwald
Year Released: 2000
Rating: 1.0
Abbie Hoffman was a radical revolutionary during the time of the Vietnam War who arranged protests with other fun-loving, pot-smoking hippies (I think he called them "yippies") and would up losing his identity because of it, paranoid because of the FBI and CIA's infiltration into his personal life. This is "his story," a biopic that's hardly daring and more half-cocked agit-prop as directed by VH1's Behind the Music crew. It gives you bits and pieces of the era - every line of dialogue revealing some "secret truth" about the lies in America - and blends in stock footage (and mock stock footage, like Forrest Gump) to try to recreate the 60's. But the film is too preachy and doltish to ever come off as anything other than a half-hearted effort, spending far too much energy trying to make Hoffman look like a tortured martyr when he keeps coming off as a brat. Simply put, there's no heart in the movie, it's all pompous text and facts and information without effective drama. It shows Hoffman (played flamboyantly by the flamboyant Vincent D'Onofrio, who in person seems calm, driven and focused, but on the screen is too out-of-control - he needs to channel the rage internally rather than lash out incessantly) and wife have their lives ruined by the intrusive government because they were sending people free joints and threatening to poison the water supply. The depiction here presents a man who was the world's class clown, but only a fraction of his peers found him amusing. When he was called into the hall and reprimanded, most wanted to stay far away.
