Review of Chicago 10 (2008) by Leftonred A — 14 Feb 2008

As a vehicle for reigniting political activism in today's seemingly apathetic youth, the film is a failure; it comes across as thoughtless starstruck hero worship or, worse, propaganda that insidiously tricks the viewer into believing that they've accomplished something simply by watching it.

Of course, it will resonate with Baby Boomers for those very same reasons. On an aesthetic level, though, there's something fascinatingly disconcerting and uncanny about the animated celebrity-voice-performed trial reenactments; they produce a sense of staged intimacy, like the kind you get when watching a beloved sitcom, that simultaneously produces a kind of affection and sympathy for these protest icons while rendering them completely and superficially two-dimensional.

Nothing new to movies, sure, but here (with the exception of Nick Nolte's instantaneously recognizable wheezing voice) there are no celebrity bodies to mediate or remind us that this is, in fact, not truth, but a calculated performance.