TOTALLY UNDER CONTROL
(directors: Alex Gibney/Ophelia Harutyunyan /Suzanne Hillinger; screenwriter: Alex Gibney; cinematographer: Ben Bloodwell; editors: Lindy Jankura, Alex Keipper; music: Peter Nashel, Brian Deming; cast: Scott Becker, Donald Trump, Taison Bell, Michael Bowen; Runtime: 123; MPAA Rating: TV-14; producers: Alex Gibney, Ophelia Harutyunyan, Suzanne Hillinger; Neon; 2020)
“We have enough news currently on how badly the yes man Trumpy administrators did, but this film will serve us well in the future as a reminder on how having such a bad leader could be disastrous to the country.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Passionately directed by prolific documentarian Alex Gibney (“Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room”/”Citizen K”), the filmmaker Suzanne Hillinger (“How to Fix an Election”) and Gibney’s long-time producer Ophelia Harutyunyan.
It details the WH’s failure of leadership to handle the COVID-19 pandemic, as it examines how that led to the loss of so many American lives (more than any other country in the world) and how it crashed the economy with the loss of jobs and businesses. That the unhinged Trump shamefully and deliberately chose to politicize a virus will go down as a great infamy and leave his legacy, as to this date, as the worst president America ever had.
The film only looks at America’s first 100 days with the virus. But during that time it shows a series of failures that ensured America was not in good hands under the leadership of this reckless president, who only cared about himself and didn’t care if people were dying unnecessarily–proposing that the virus must not be recognized as real so his re-election would not be spoiled.
It also shows the amoral con man prez promoting fake quack remedies he heard about on his favorite network, Fox News, a network that acted like it was a state-run propaganda organ for Trump and supported the wannabe dictator whatever nutty or evil thing he did.
We have enough news currently on how badly the yes man Trumpy administrators did, but this film will serve us well in the future as a reminder on how having such a bad leader could be disastrous to the country. Imagine if instead of FDR as president during WW 11 we had this arrogant, hateful, inept and divisive clown.
REVIEWED ON 12/5/2020 GRADE: B+