The Hunting of the President

This film has some major problems. One,it explains almost nothing. Even if you paid close attention in the '90s to the "deep-in-the-weeds" details of Whitewater and the pre-Monica sexual allegations against Clinton---this movie not only assumes you understood this stuff to begin with, but that you remember it too. Mistake. If you are looking for a movie that will shed some light on these subjects, this isn't it.

Second,the director constantly interrupts the storyline with flashes to clips of "gangsters" or "train crashes" which I assume are supposed to imply the dastardliness of the "hunters of the president". The impact is distracting to the viewer and trivializes the subject at hand. If a class of sophomores somewhere were asks to dramatize this subject, I have the feeling this is what they would come up with.

Weak effort.

After seeing this movie I feel even more certain that we should change the

constitution to allow Presidents to serve more than 2 terms. Clinton was the greatest President in my lifetime and I am Embarrassed for our country with

the recent election of Dubya. How could 58 million people be so DUMB! We

are hated and despised throughout the world. Our economy is in the tank and

over 1000 of our finest have died in an illegitimate war. When Clinton lied, no one died! His lie was about a personal failing. He was pushed into the

impeachment thing by right-wing zealots. If those idiots had been doing their job and not salivating over a sex scandal maybe the President could have

concentrated on more important things. I blame the right-wing congressmen

and Senators for the build up to 9/11.

This movie is prime material for those on one or the other side of the issue, so it might be hard for its target audience (or those who would see it to refute it -- the tone of the first post leads one to infer that sort of thing occurs too). I personally thought President Clinton showed a lack of public integrity in his actions -- having an affair in the White House while an investigation is going on about his sex habits in AR, and stonewalling when it came out. I also had mixed feelings about some of his politics.

Still, we are talking a matter of degree here. It is hard to look at the facts, even without a Friend of Bill being involved as here, and not see the excesses. This film does a pretty good job at touching upon some of them (I have not read the book it was based on by a Arkansas reporter and Joe Conanson). It clearly is not neutral, though the situation makes it hard to be. One thing it doesn't do is totally exonerate Clinton. Various of the talking heads noted they were upset or worse about his whole Monica fiasco. It just thought it was not worthy of impeachment and victimization of a lot of little people. Whitewater was shown to be a whole lot of smoke no fire both by a report and the ind. counsel as well. Enron it was not.

Facts are shown. The movie starts off a bit fake with a lot of clips from old movies and a tone right out of a cut rate film noir movie to "sex" up the proceedings to keep our interest. It also hypes up the "conspiracy" angle a bit too much. This sort of heavyhandedness is ratcheted down some by the half way point, especially with the entrance of Susan McDougal, the heroine of the film. The portrayal is one-sided (troubling, even if she's totally innocent), but quite emotional and effective. The account of the pressure put on her to plea and her time in jail was particularly emotional.

So, mixed result -- there is a pretty strong case that abuses were carried out, good evidence that a lot of the parties against Clinton were suspicious and led more by hate and distaste than the facts, and some evidence of a lot of additional shadiness. It would have helped if the film interviewed someone to dispute Susan M., and likely such a p.o.v. was in the book. Overall, tries to prove too much, but there is enough "there" there to be worth watching to remember and get a flavor of the doings in AR.

This documentary revealed in a narrative style, how shockingly powerful the campaign to destroy Bill Clinton was.

The documentary ran like a thesis paper. Each statement was backed up by several facts, with at least one reputable political figure backing it up. There were also several confessions from well know republicans involved as well.

The narrative style backed up by Morgan Freeman's dark voice provided yet another bonus.

It truly provides an insight you've never seen. It changed my views on Clinton and how far certain political partys will go to get their way.

Music- 4 Out of 5 Narration- 5 Out of 5 Proof- 5 Out of 5

Overall- 9.5 Out of 10

Another in a series of recent political documentaries that started with "Fahrenheit 911" and whose end does not seem to be in sight, "The Hunting of the President" is the least successful so far. While the film does have its moments, especially those that detail the brutalizing of Susan McDougal, the filmmakers try to squeeze too much into the short running time. Comments, images, and events flash by, especially towards the beginning, and left this viewer a bit confused. The clips from old movies, which I assume were for comic effect, could have been omitted as they only added to the clutter. Perhaps someone who has read the book would be able to follow the portrayed events better than someone who has to rely on their memory of newscasts from the period. While the film is definitely worth watching if for nothing else than as a history review, the talk given by President Clinton at the film's premiere, which is included on the DVD, is a concise and masterful lecture on political trends in American history and is more engrossing than much of the documentary. Mr. Clinton easily could pursue yet another successful career as a history professor