Year One: A Political Odyssey

From the cast of characters that brought you a disaster in Afghanistan, inflation from day one of the Presidency, empty shelves, fingers in the war in Ukraine, unfettered illegal immigration, fentynal, eye-watering crime levels, laptops, Russia dossiers, criminal deals, money laundering for the Big Guy, and smoking guns aplenty. Well that's just a brief summary of the plot glossed over with quirky voxpops of life behind the press briefing room. Thankfully the CNN crew that pushed all the "reliable sources" are almost gone, and so will half the staffers after November. While the West ponders nuclear war, Biden and his absentee VP ponder more boosters for your arm, LGBTQ+ bumper stickers, sex manuals for kids, the weather and keeping the borders open, Russia and China plot their next move facing zero resistance from grandad Joe. Year One: A Political Comedy. (If only).

This is obvious fluff piece which makes it hard to watch for anyone including movie critics who are usually not Republican... change my mind. Is there actually anyone on this documentary that thinks they are not doing good. That would actually make this a documentary if you see multiple opinions that don't involve the White House critiquing themselves. Who doesn't think they are a good person or don't do any wrong. Even serial killers probably don't think they are that bad... to themselves. That's what's wrong with this documentary it has no balls and doesn't actually answer any real questions that are not unscripted.

This documentary has a bunch of democrats spinning their narrative to turn everything that happened in Biden's first year of presidency positive, without any another perspective or facts to back up their words. Typical indoctrination video to turn people with no critical thinking skills to their side and get their votes. I will give them a bit of credit in that they did sort of admit their blunder of how they coordinated the pull out of troops from Afghanistan. If you're on the left side of politics, discover the facts and review your history. Watch documentaries on history and you'll see the issues with democrats and the suffering their policies and decisions have brought to this world...

This documentary is basically just clips of a handful of people from the Biden team telling you how great they and their administration are. The filmmakers don't provide any critical commentary. The likes of Ron Klain and Jen Psaki don't show any signs of having engaged in any self reflection or self criticism. It makes for a dull documentary that offers few lessons or explanations about anything.

Making it even duller, the production value is pretty low. There's nothing appealing or interesting about the visuals or the audio, and a lot of the interview clips are 50%+ too long for what little information they offer.

I'm not really sure who this was made for. It'd be painfully boring for anyone who's not deeply interested in our politics, but it offers nothing new for anyone who follows the White House at all closely... just the same self-comgratulatory spiels these officials deliver all the time.

*yawn*

As "Year One: A Political Odyssey" (2022 release; 85 min) opens, it is "January 20, 2021" and Biden is sworn in while Trump, disgraced and the Biggest Loser ever, breaks with 245 years of precedents and refuses to attend. Soon thereafter Biden faces the on-going COVID pandemic (comments one official: "In December we asked what is the plan. There was no plan"). At this point we are less than 10 minutes into the movie.

Couple of comments; this is the latest documentary from well respected director John Maggio {"The Perfect Weapon"). He is given broad access to many of the top people in the Biden administration. While the movie title refers to Year One, it covers in fact the initial 14 months of the Biden presidency (through late March of 2022), which can be very broadly summed up in 3 challenges: COVID, Afghanistan, and Russia. The debacle that was the withdrawal from Afghanistan demonstrates that even competent people can make very bad and unexpected miscalculations. When viewing a documentary like this, it isn't always easy to distinguish between the politics you agree or disagree with and whether the documentary is in fact any good. Please don't be fooled by the overall terrible rating of this movie here on IMDb (3.4 as of today), which without a doubt are the results of ratings given by trolls (Russian and/or Trumpist trolls, if they can be distinguished) who haven't seen the documentary.

"Year One: A Political Odyssey" premiered on HBO and HBO Max last night (I caught it on HBO Max). If you have an interest in (geo)politics or are simply in the mood for a decent documentary, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.