Hunting Of The President

Year: 2004

Grade: C

Country: USA

Director: Thomason

Review

through most of this film the case of a right wing conspiracy against clinton is made more through pastiche instead of through clear, logical building blocks. in that first hour we are introduced to a great number of witnesses for the prosecution, insiders, defense attorneys, etc. each of them contributes, in some way, to the grand narrative of the film – there was a vast conspiracy to take power from clinton while he was president. the film presents this by showing, chronologically, the events leading up to whitewater and monicagate. unfortunately a lot of the evidence is patched together rather loosely so we get an idea of what the picture looks like, but it’s hard to really have a clear understanding of anything beyond the broad brushstrokes. the last twenty to thirty minutes of the film does a better job of demonstrating whitewater/monicagate as right wing witch-huntery, rather than the “pursuit of truth” that ken starr claimed it to be. both the production and the score were pretty b-grade and that was unfortunate. i don’t think the film is going to change any minds and it’s not incredibly informative either. overall it’s nice enough to watch, but not one of the better documentaries of the year.