Giuliani Time

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani became an international hero. But before his sudden deification, he was a much-maligned and often confrontational political figure who, by the end of his two terms, was despised by a majority of New Yorkers. "Giuliani Time" (2006), a new documentary from former cinematographer Kevin Keating, effectively details the numerous controversies that plagued America's Mayor throughout his tumultuous reign. Through interviews with both friends and foes – the latter seem to outweigh the former – Keating weaves a telling, though sometimes long-winded tale that paints Rudy as a controlling autocrat whose hell-bent quest for a more orderly city often trampled the rights of its citizens.

"Giuliani Time" starts with Rudy's rapid rise from working-class Brooklyn to becoming an ambitious U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, where he made a name for himself going after mobsters and crooked politicians. Once Reagan was ushered into office, Giuliani become Associate Attorney General, the third-highest office inside the Justice Department. As a harbinger of things to come, he sought to deny the rights of Haitian immigrants fleeing from the political repression of Jean-Claude Duvalier. After meeting personally with Duvalier, Giuliani misleadingly testified that the alleged repression did not exist. Keating focuses on this as a seminal moment in Giuliani's career, one that foretells his crackdown on New Yorkers when he becomes mayor in 1994.

Following a bitter rematch against former mayor David Dinkins, Giuliani barely nudged his way into office on a promise to fight crime by fixing broken windows, a zero tolerance policing policy that focuses on quelling public nuisances in order to prevent major crimes. Keating delves deeply into Giuliani's use of the broken windows theory to tighten his grip on the city, first by removing the homeless and the dreaded squeegee men from the streets, then by cutting welfare rolls while using the unemployed to sweep sidewalks and take out trash. He also details Giuliani's unleashing of the police to do whatever necessary to enforce the law, which ultimately led to numerous accusations of brutality, and two highly-publicized cases where one man was brutally sodomized with a plunger handle and another shot forty-one times while unarmed.

Keating does a nice job going step-by-step through Giuliani's troubled tenure, thankfully keeping mentions of 9/11 only at the beginning and end. Clocking in at close to 120 minutes, "Giuliani Time" does get carried away from time to time, going off on excursions that occasionally stray too far from the subject, while the most interesting aspect of the Giuliani story – his public meltdown in 2000 while running for a U.S. Senate seat against Hillary Clinton – gets the short shrift. But in the end, what we get is a fascinating portrait of a man who overstepped his bounds in his quest for power and seemingly lost everything, only to be reborn in our nation's most tragic moment.

By Shawn Dwyer a CinemActivist

Giuliani Time is an interesting, if somewhat overlong, movie that exposes Rudolph Giuliani's record on a number of issues while he was Mayor of New York and before of course, he became the patriarchal saint leading New York out of September 11th. Narrated mostly by a newspaper editor who seems to have a BIG bone to pick with him, Giuliani Time focuses on his drive to clean up New York City, tone down crime, and other things, well, that you would expect a mayor to do. Somehow, and here's a surprise here, some corruption and social injustice happens! Ohhhh nasty stuff here! Really, imho, this film almost makes a mountain out of molehill, by exposing some dirt that hardly seems dirty. Yes, his father was a Mafioso type of person. Giuliani even admits that in the film! But if you're looking for stuff like he ate-his-first-born, (he didn't by the way) then you're bound to be disappointed. To be honest, I actually enjoyed this film, you could say, for all the wrong reasons. I looked into this film more as a glimpse into a city in transition over anything else. Although some people mourn the loss of the seedier underbelly of Times Square in New York (it's still there, just not in Times Square), I found it was needed for the changing times. This film shows what had to be done.

It's a don't-see for any New Yorker. It helps us re-focus on what went on over the past two decades and clarifies just how the life blood of the city has been sucked out of it by the vampire, the homeless. Giuliani saved, SAVED and restored the city, removing as much trash as he could. One woman as the audacity to say she had a third grade education, and instead of giving her a free education, they gave her a job...HOW DARE THEY. Now Disneyfied, city Gotham has turned into a safe place for locals and tourists alike. Celebrations are thankfully staged police-managed barricaded photo-ops where we no longer fear for our own lives, and the people surrounding us are not all selling crack. New Yorkers can finally have a good time. This documentary fails to make us care about the immigrants who don't feel like US citizens...immigrants, you don't say? We see how the homeless have been placed in shelters in outer boroughs, thankfully given a place to stay, yet keeping their smell away, and they are complaining, no humans have ever been so ungrateful. We see how artists are removed from the streets, allowing normal citizens to walk the streets and not be badgered. If you are one of those who has been blinded by how much better the city is, you need to see this, you will hate the whiners as they get arrested and the homeless complain about being given jobs. If it doesn't make you thankful for what Giuliani has done, then you are lost.

It's a must-see for every New Yorker. It helps us re-focus on what went on over the past two decades and clarifies just how the life blood of the city has been sucked out of it by the vampire passing for a priest. Giuliani mollified, MALLified and mummified the city, destroying every shred of creative, interpersonal and humanitarian energy that used to make the city great. Now Disneyfied, the Tragic Kingdom has turned into an armed camp of private parties for the rich, where people pay twenty dollars admission to a bar with beds and no dance floor passing for a club. Celebrations are staged police-managed barricaded photo-ops for the mega media, where tourists pretend to be New Yorkers having a good time. This documentary wakes us up to the reality. We see how the homeless have been placed in shelters in outer boroughs, out of sight and out of mind, penned in sterile internment barely better than prisons. We see how artists are rounded up like terrorists for displaying their work on what used to be the festive sidewalks of the Village. If you are one of those who has been zombified by the past twenty years of celebrating the antiseptic city, then you need to see this film. If it doesn't make you shed a few tears, then you are lost.

This is essentially a "Hit-Piece" on Giuliani from the Michael Moore school of documentary film-making. It is so virulent and one sided that the viewer can only be led to think that the creators of this movie hold a serious grudge against the former Mayor. At the end of the day, one need only look to see that he left New York a better city than the one he inherited from his predecessor. Granted, some hard choices were made and if you want to single those things out for examples of his failures then you must also admit to his victories otherwise your message will be obscured by its obvious bias. Merely assembling a collection of sound bites, news clips and assembling them creatively in the editing room does not fool anyone, only those moronic enough to take this drivel at face value. Rudy did a good job. Not a great job, as I'm sure even he will agree. It's suggested here that 9/11 and it's aftermath saved Giuliani - I disagree. He would have been counted among New York's finest Mayors even if 9/11 never happened. But how he reacted to that dreadful event showed the world what "Courage under fire" really means.