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America's Heart & Soul
* *

You know how at the end of a particularly slow news day, they will sometimes have a brief end-of-show segment involving some fabulously quirky person and their fabulous quirk of choice? Too short and innocuous to really give thought to, they serve their purpose-to fill a minute or two of broadcast time-and I would venture that most people hardly even notice them. Imagine roughly three dozen of those segments spliced together at random and you have "America’s Heart & Soul", a new documentary that offers quick portraits of various people-including a teetotaling cowboy, a blind mountain climber, an Appalachian loomer, a metal sculptor, cliff-dancers (don’t ask) and a rock band whose leader uses his down time to "practice my facial expressions". Everyone is chirpy and smiling and even the darker moments are given a positive burnish; the workers at an almost-shuttered steel mill buy back their workplace while complaining about the evil of cheap foreign steel (without criticizing the American corporations that are farming out to those outside plants) and the destitute loomer insists that she is fine because "Poverty is not a word to a true Appalachian."

No doubt, I will be labeled as a degenerate pinko liberal by many but "America’s Heart & Soul", despite its obvious good intentions, is kind of a drag. According to filmmaker Louis Schwartzberg, this collection of people is supposed to represent everything that America stands for but he doesn’t really seem particularly interested in them; the structure of the film means that instead of getting to know these people in any way, they just blend together into one large, undistinguished mass. (The effect is like watching an 86-minute campaign commercial for a candidate unwilling to take a stand on anything.) Also working against the film is the relentlessly bland tone of the proceedings; this is the kind of ultra-square film that thinks it is rocking out by playing "All-Star" on the soundtrack and where the closest thing to a controversial statement made by any of the subjects is when one guy asks, "If Jesus came back, what kind of car would he drive?"

"America’s Heart & Soul" has been getting a lot of ink lately, though, for reasons far out of its control. Long-planned for a release this weekend by Disney, many have latched onto it as a sort of anti-"Fahrenheit 9/11" and are looking at it as either a pointed rejoinder to Michael Moore’s film or as confirmation that Disney’s decision to not release "Fahrenheit 9/11" was politically motivated. The film is neither (although Disney decision to sponsor a special screening for one of the groups that was most vocal in the campaign against "Fahrenheit 9/11" does raise some interesting questions) but it isn’t really much of anything else either; it can;t be accused of having an ideological bias simply because it doesn’t seem to have any ideology-political or artistic-to speak of.

Some commentators have, in the wake of Michael Moore, claimed that documentaries should be entirely objective and that the filmmaker should not try to impose his own point-of-view on the proceedings. "America’s Heart & Soul" feels as if it was made to test that hypothesis. If so, the experiment was a failure; it won’t anger or provoke anyone but I suspect that even the most indulgent audiences will be checking their watches long before the ending.

Starring: Roudy Roudebush, Ann Savoy, Marc Savoy, Mosie Burks, Minnie Bates Yancey . Directed by: Louis Schwartzberg. Produced by: Louis Schwartzberg, Jan Ross, Vincent Ueber. MPAA Rating: PG for mild thematic elements. Distributor: Walt Disney Pictures.

The Clearing
* * 1/2

"The Clearing" is an emotional drama about an estranged, long-married couple, played by Robert Redford and Helen Mirren, who find themselves coming to terms with themselves, each other and the various compromises that they have made over the years when Redford, a rich and successful CEO, is kidnapped by a former employee (Willem Dafoe) and taken on a journey through the woods to a rendezvous point. The difference between this film and other such hostage dramas is in the structure of the piece-it goes back-and-forth between the Redford/Dafoe story and Mirren’s attempts to secure her husband’s release and the coming-to-terms occurs while the couple is separated. The problem with the film is that the arch structure is so overwhelming that you assume that director Pieter Jan Brugge is using it for some grand purpose-hopes betrayed by the disappointing so-what? finale. This is a shame because the three leads all turn in good performances - Redford hasn’t been this effective in years-but they wind up being in the service of a story that starts off strong but which eventually becomes just an exercise without any real point to it.

Written by Justin Haythe. Directed by Pieter Jan Brugge. Starring Robert Redford, Willem Dafoe, Helen Mirren, Matt Craven, Alessandro Nivola and Melissa Sagemiller.

-- Capsule Reviews by Peter Sobczynski

Copyright © 2004 Peter Sobczynski
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While the views expressed by Peter Sobczynski do not necessarily reflect the views of Criticdoctor.com, the Critic Doctor will occasionally examine Mr. Sobczynski's film reviews to bring forth an honest examination of those views expressed.