Review of Grass (1999) by Steve J — 10 Dec 2007
Grass is a documentary about the war on marijuana, narrated by Woody Harrelson. It consists primarily of clips from various anti-drug films, news footage of the people who fought for and against the drug war, quite a bit of stock footage, and some very cool animation.
The movie breaks the war on marijuana into several irregular stages, including the laws (both good and bad) passed related to marijuana, the amount of money spent on the war on marijuana, and other important facts. It's packed with valuable information, and the animations and clips from things like "Reefer Madness" make it amusing as well. There's also footage of a young Cab Calloway singing "Reefer Man.".
Which brings me to the soundtrack--in addition to Cab, it's got "Okie From Muskogee," "One Toke Over the Line," "Illegal Smile," and quite a few other good songs.
Another great part of the documentary is the constantly updated "Truth." It starts out with "The Truth: If you smoke it...You Will Die" and moves on to the updated truths such as "If you smoke it...You Will Go Insane" and my personal favorite (during the 70s era) "If you smoke it...Bad Things Will Happen (But we're not sure what).".
The movie is obviously pro-pot (Woody's involvement should be a tip-off), but it does a good job of not being one sided. While the animations make it clear that certain drug laws (such as the marijuana stamp act) are bad things while others (such as Oregon's decriminalization of marijuana in 1973) are good things, they don't come right out and say it. Other than these little bits of pro-pot sympathies, the documentary really just states the facts and lets you draw your own conclusions.
The biggest shortcoming of Grass is that it really only covers from the early 20th Century to the Carter administration. The Reagan/Bush years are just a montage of news footage and all that is mentioned of the Clinton administration is the staggering number of marijuana arrests (more than any other administration in history).
I highly recommend Grass, no matter what side of the pot/hemp/drugs in general debate you take.
This review of Grass (1999) was written by Steve J on 10 Dec 2007.
Grass has generally received positive reviews.
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