The Sixth

A must-watch for every American adult. With chilling footage and extraordinary first-hand accounts, The Sixth presents the events of that terrible day in raw, unvarnished relief.

As of this writing (6/924) The Sixth has 100% critic and audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes but a 6.4 on IMDB? I'm guessing there are a lot of 1s from people who never watched this film. A shame - the people who need to see this the most likely will never. To ensure they never happen again, we must be brave enough to revist the events of January 6th, a day our Capitol was stormed for the first time since the war of 1812.

A photographer brings us back to the day our capital was under siege by a group of people that were invited by The Actual president that day to come to the capital because he had lost the election and was mad so he called on his mob to disrupt our certification of our new President. Made me emotional!

The photographer brings you in to the actual day that so many will not forget. My Dad was a WW11 Vet and he wouldn't believe our country would follow anyone to tell them to go against our government. My cousin died at age 18 in Vietnam and our country used to respect protests if they were peaceful. This was not peaceful!!

This film reminds us of the truth of that day from six people who experienced it first hand and through whose courage, democracy triumphed. Original footage shows aspects of the day that never made the news. The award-winning directors live in Washington DC and have a unique perspective. The featured people include policemen and women who protected the Capitol, congressional aides who barricaded themselves in offices, a photographer embedded in the crowd with insurgents, and a congressman. The imagery is powerful and irrefutable and even if you watched the events unfold in live time, there are scenes that have never been seen.

"Usually the Federal Government comes in to back up local law enforcement. On January 6th, local law enforcement came to the rescue of the Federal Government." Washington DC Chief of Police ---- I did not know many things about January 6th but I always assumed when the then POTUS told people to go home - the crowd did. That's not what happened. They kept attacking, as violent as ever, but law enforcement from VA, MD, and NJ swept in and dispersed the crowd. Regular police officers faced that huge crowd and relieved the few hundred that had battled them for hours.

I definitely just recommend watching this documentary. It uses extensive actual footage and interviews the D. C. Chief of Police, a D. C. Policeman (himself a former Guardsman), a Capitol policewoman, a photographer in the crowd, a congressman, and a Congressional Staffer (running with the six theme). There is almost no political commentary. Just what law enforcement and our Congress faced. Regardless of what one thinks about the vote - I have no doubt law enforcement in the Capitol saved many lives that day. There were people in that mob ready to kill Congressmen and women.

We can get locked into pointing fingers on who should have done what and chain of command. For the record , I learned the nearby Guardsmen were unarmed and had no body armor. So they really couldn't have been used. But all I can say is I am grateful for the heroes of the day and that local law enforcement stepped into the breach. And I hope in the future we will be as fast against a domestic threat as we would be for a foreign one.

We should make sure that nothing like that ever happens again.

This was a very well made and poignant depiction of the insurrection on a more personal and granular level than many people (certainly myself) have often had a chance to see presented in one place and as one form.

Frankly it's pretty hard to rate something like this accurately. It seems it's also hard to do it dispassionately and outside the lens of cult indoctrination, as evidenced by our dear friend reviewer "Htownklown." My perfect rating, therefore, is probably a reflection just as much on the personal resonance I felt with this film (it's a topic of great importance to me) as on the high quality of the film itself. The horrors of that day touched so many of us but it's important to hear the stories of those it touched completely and often violently.

Well worth your time and I'd highly suggest giving it a go before November. It's impossible to overstate what's at stake for America.