Review of Defamation (2009) by Jonathan M — 17 Jul 2010

I was disappointed in this documentary, plain and simple. It started out with a interesting beginning and looked like it was going to take off to bring about some good points on the subject of Anti-Semitism today but, for me, it failed to do so.

The middle of this movie just seems to wander back and forth and never really got a hold of me. Not until the end when the Israeli students are visiting the concentration camps and you see their emotions come out and the realization of what their ancestors went through do you see something engaging and deep.

And even the students (prior to aforementioned scene) seem to play out for the cameras, accusing some old men of degrading them and being anti-Semitic, when the dialogue on the screen is anything but.

The narration is a joke, in my view. Very amateurish and lacking in style. At times, I thought this documentary was an effort provided by a USC freshman film student. There are good points the movie makes but never follows through on them.

And the scenes with the Anti-Defamation League come across as not serious; like they took this guy for a joke and talked with him to humor him. I've seen far better documentaries than this one. If you want to yawn, check out this one.