Review of Dark Money (2018) by Tim M — 15 Dec 2018

It's nice to have a political film be bi-partisan. 'Dark Money', a PBS documentary from Kimberly Reed, a Montana native, is one of the few that takes a balanced approach on a subject and tells all sides.

This is about Montana's quest to be corruption free and how they attempted to make financial contributions to politicians and judges transparent. The state has been one of the most progressive in campaign finance reform, but the United States Supreme Court decision Citizens United changed that. One would imagine it's a state's rights issue, but it turns out the Supreme Court said, in a separate ruling, Montana couldn't reduce corruption the way they had in the past. The more you get into the worm hole that Reed takes you down the more slimy you feel. Our Democracy was losing steam with every dollar that poured into Montana from untraceable dark money groups who were mostly, if not all, outside of Montana. The state politicians fought back, but many of the Republicans up for reelection were facing primary challengers with the big money backing. Why is Montana so important? Reed explains every detail in a nuanced but thorough way. Even if you're familiar on the subject you're bound to learn something. This isn't one of those fear mongering or conspiracy theory docs, but rather one that brings facts and a lot of them. It's powerful, it's important, and it's not always easy to hear, but it's necessary if you want free and fair elections that aren't corrupted by big money corporations looking for a strangle hold on our government. Final Score: 10/10.