Review of Go Further (2003) by Ali S — 21 Jun 2005

Ron Mann is an eclectic documentarian, choosing subjects on the fringe of pop culture and putting together films based on them in entertaining and informative ways, even if he sticks in visual quirks a bit more often than necessary. Movies like Comic Book Confidential and Grass detail histories with interesting interviews that can't help but pull you into the subject despite their rather obvious biases.

The problem with [i]Go Further[/i], it seems, is that it doesn't detail anything in terms of history at all, but simply profiles a road trip made by Woody Harrelson and his assorted bunch of pals on a "SOL" (Self- Living) tour bus from Oregon to southern California as they make speeches, eat avocado and... um, ride bikes. You'll learn nothing about environmentalism, Earth science history or anything that could convince you why saving the Earth is important, and instead get dubious science "facts" like how all milk contains blood and pus.

The film is well put together and certainly a lot more professional than the likes of, say, [i]Desperately Seeking Seka[/i], and I can't deny being entertained once or twice, but there's an overwhelming sense of "why'd they bother" hovering over the whole thing that's hard to ignore. The bus stops off at the typical Pacific Coast Highway liberal college spots--San Francisco, Eugene, Sacramento--and Woody talks about how bad foresting is, but a B-list actor talking about the environment to a group of leftist college students is hardly noteworthy enough to film. The closest thing we get to a story arc is that of Steve, a junk food junkie picked seemingly at random to join the tour, and I guess he's supposed to serve as an audience substitute, but when he reacts so strongly to bold statement backed by no evidence, it feels a little insulting, and Steve just ends up looking like a goofball on the road with a bunch of hippies.

In between segments of the road, a few bands perform, but these segments from the likes of Natalie Merchant, Dave Matthews and the String Cheese Incident add nothing and bring the already-languid film to a complete halt. A sadly brief bit from Ken Kesey that revisits the Merry Prankster's bus is nice, but you wish they'd have bothered to talk to the guy for more than a few seconds of film time, especially with his death soon after this footage was shot.

The best part of [i]Go Further[/i] comes an hour into the film, as the bus visits Ruckus, a training camp for activists, as they learn the proper procedure to be arrested, how to argue and how to stop police blockades. It's an interesting segment about a place I'd never realized existed, and a more personal documentarian could set a feature-length film there alone. Sadly, it takes up only a few minutes of [i]Go Further[/i], and like most of the film, shows people who have very little to say, and say it charmlessly.

Diehard environmentalits will probably find a lot to like about [i]Go Further[/i]--after all, they're the choir this film is boldly preaching towards. If you're reading this with a bag of Cheetos perched on your lap rather than a seaweed salad, you'll find little reason here to switch off the junk food and convert to a more organic lifestyle. Mann should probably stick to profiling historical trends, because when it comes to making documentaries about people and their ideas, he's not particularly good at showing either.