Horns and Halos

The reviews spin this movie as a Bushies keeping the little man down documentary. It isn't. The movie never editorializes the way Michael Moore movies do. Heck, it didn't even have to be about politics at all as much as it attempts to explain why we are constantly reading how miserable the rich and famous are...

The movie is about a little guy that wanted to play with the big kids. Unfortunately, he got what he wanted. After writing several small time bios of people like Star Trek's Captain Picard, James Hatfield decides to hit the big time by writing a bio of then Governor George W. Bush. It worked -- for four days. The movie is about how an average, everyday guy reacts when the microscope of fame is turned back on him. Will he rise to the occasion and become a hero or be beaten down like a dog? Better yet, how would you react if all of your secrets were bared for all to see and judge? That's the question this movie explored for me.

As most people know, when you dig up dirt on a major public figure, especially one who is running for president, many setbacks come with it. Horns and Halos is a film regarding a man, James Hatfield, who decided to venture down that path. He's responsible for the book "Fortunate Son" which is a pull no punches bio on the man who now occupies, for a second time, the address of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. There was a lot of controversy surrounding the book, mainly because of it's accusation that Mr. Bush was once arrested for cocaine possession in the 70's. In the film, we follow Hatfield, and his publisher, Soft Skull Press, as they struggle to get the book released. What happens is poignant and ultimately tragic.

This documentary actually turns out to be quite a lot more than a political polemic, and it's all the better for it. Naturally, extreme lovers of Bush will be put off immediately, but no surprise there. And, people looking for straight Bush bashing may be disappointed as well. This is not an expose into the darker side of the Retard King, and it purposely goes easy on the conspiratorial tone. There is a significant, though not entirely fleshed out, subtext about media control and the consequences of that, but mostly this is a story about some fascinating, driven, rather demented people and their travails amongst the big fish. In other words, it's most entertaining and enlightening on a human level, not a political one.

I will say that the 'revelation' at the end is so extreme that it changes the perception of the entire narrative, and it's something which the movie itself never entirely comes to grips with. The way it's structured does give the momentum of the drama a naturalistic feel, but I wonder if there wasn't a better, more upfront way to rework it and maintain the impact.

However, the sense of howling into the wind is subtle and well played, and the real human drama of people striving to be more than they actually are (even by duplicitous means) opens up a whole range of connections between GWB, the author and the publisher. The idea that the publisher and the author are to some extent frauds, or at the very least unabashed showmen, would call into question the validity of the whole documentary if the approach didn't feel genuinely vérité, which is why it works much better as a depiction of flawed humanity than as an investigation into the (also interesting) issues with the book, media, etc.

In the late nineties up until the G. W. Bush election, documentary filmmakers Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley stumbled upon a goldmine of subtance. At the time, James Hatfield's book "The Fortunate" was recalled for many reasons, mostly because of his shady background. With hopes that his biography's truth would outweigh his past, he meets with Sander Hicks, the colorful publisher of his company called Soft Skull. Hicks makes the documentary for the most part. He constantly changes through different punk phases throughout the film, suggesting that he was looking for himself simultaneously to looking for "The Fortunate Son"'s distribution. His band "White Collar Crime" provides not only some fun music for the soundtrack, but also an introspective into the young man's sometimes frantic personality and political rebellion. The trials and tribulations the odd pair go through are documented with a taut, always entertaining pace. The film is never boring or tedious, even when the book is in an ongoing limbo of failures and complications. I liked how Suki and Galinsky didn't try to justify Hatfield. By the end of the film, he is just as much of an enigma as he was when the film began. He is impossible to read and always unpredictable, but when a haunting tragedy strikes, he is not judged or manipulated. "Horns and Halos" is moody tale told with nimble filmmaking. Its solid theme of a tainted pass serves as a metaphor for a truth lost almost lost with ceonsorship.

Excellent documentary of what goes into publishing a banned book. The book being suppressed by the rich and powerful, in this case, being "Fortunate Son", an unauthorized biography of George W. Bush, Jr. (the still unimpeached president at the time of this writing).

You also get a tragedy for your money along with a well-done soundtrack. And if that's not enough, significant parts of the book are revealed so that you don't even have to buy the book after seeing the movie. But you'll want to.