Hamilton: One Shot to Broadway

This is a great documentary if you have any interest in 'Hamilton' at all. It's a good companion piece to 'Hamilton's America', which aired on PBS, since the two documentaries cover different ground. This one mainly focuses on the theatrical aspects -- why the musical was so ground-breaking and so successful. Many of the commentators are theater critics, theater insiders, and theater historians. For anyone who is fascinated by this play, particularly if you haven't been able to see the play yet, this is a great way to experience it.

There is no doubt that Hamilton is a smash hit musical. I took my children to see it at London's West End.

I knew a bit about Hamilton the man. They knew the songs to the musical.

This is an overlong superficial documentary. You know it says the same things several times such as Hamilton was a little known figure.

Well I knew about him and I live in Britain. Then it contradicts itself by stating that from all the founding fathers he wrote the most. So there is a lot of evidence of his writings.

It is a documentary with talking heads, archive clips and archive interviews. A bit of a cheap knock off riding on the coattails of the success of the musical. Not much regarding the performances from the musical itself.

Some of the contributors such as Michael Riedel were more interesting, at least they were not all fawning over Lin-Manuel Miranda.

My criticisms seem to be other reviewer's praises so, I'll try to be succinct in this review. "Hamilton, One Shot to Broadway", plays like an overly long Sunday morning news broadcast. It's non confrontational, it offers no new insight, and covers no new ground. There are no new interviews with anyone involved with Hamilton, only old footage of interviews and of those they are scant and mostly surface-level. The subjects that are interviewed are critics and historians, and guess what, yeah they love it too. Big revelation. The pacing in this doc is jarring as it seems like it wants to end every twenty minutes or so, with no flow from one idea or aspect of the production to the next. It feels like it was made for television, and just something to have on in the background as you eat breakfast or do the crossword. As fascinating as the material is and the people who created it are, this documentary falls flat and totally wastes its shot.

This is one of the worst documentaries I've ever seen. The talking heads are not very bright. A few of the talking heads are so steeped in their white privilege that they're unable to have a sense of the play's power. And the documentary didn't interview anyone from the play. They just include interview clips from other sources. And they keep showing the same still shots over and over again.

This is so boring and poorly made.

Just watch the PBS Documentary.

That is all.