Two-part documentary directed by Emmy(R) and Academy Award(R) Winner Alex Gibney is a product of years of reporting on that disturbing question. With never-before-seen footage inside Russian... Read allTwo-part documentary directed by Emmy(R) and Academy Award(R) Winner Alex Gibney is a product of years of reporting on that disturbing question. With never-before-seen footage inside Russian troll farms, and videos unearthed from the Russian deep web, the film digs into the sophi... Read allTwo-part documentary directed by Emmy(R) and Academy Award(R) Winner Alex Gibney is a product of years of reporting on that disturbing question. With never-before-seen footage inside Russian troll farms, and videos unearthed from the Russian deep web, the film digs into the sophisticated plans to undermine democracy.
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His documentary on Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos was on shakier ground but still very compelling because of the sheer mountain of documentation and interviews detailing the funny business.
This "expose" on Russia's influence on the 2016 US elections is a huge comedown.
First, the positives. Information on Vladimir Putin's hold on power, is thorough. The network of Russian operatives successfully planting misinformation on world events is given some time, mostly well spent.
The "tell" - the turd in the punchbowl - comes 45 minutes into the first episode: Gibney, in his own voice, pushes the theory Putin put into play interfering in the US Presidential election because Hillary Clinton would be too tough on Putin and Russia, based on Gibney's perception of Hillary's supposed toughness as Secretary of State.
The next few minutes has Gibney talking about Trump using the very early perceptions from the Pundit Class in 2015. Five years from then through today, with perspective, fails to change his tone.
It falls apart from here.
The biggest "name" interviewed is John Podesta, one of the senior members of the Clinton campaign. That's fine; a mature viewer can clean something from Podesta.
The rest of the "experts" interviewed are ex-ambassadors, career low level bureaucrats, and tech folks who, while in government, were clueless as to Russian doings, if true, but often sounding like papering over their resumes and spinning tall tales for future work. THESE folks sound today like they knew all these alleged doings all along.
How can Russian operatives be so sloppy and yet so brilliant at the same time? For the last 3 1/4 hours, Gibney never asks, and no one has the answers.
Discussions on this may fill time on the twitterverse and on Cable talk shows, but it's empty talk.
Gibney lowered his standards to weave a story that is only somewhat true in a limited way It fails to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Couple of comments: this is the latest documentary from director Alex Gibney ("The Armstrong Lie", "Going Clear: Scientology and the prison of Belief"). He is without a doubt one of the more prominent documentary filmmakers of this generation, nothing short of the gold standard. Here he directs his attention to what Russia has been up to relative to spreading disinformation and hacking data banks. It is frankly utterly depressing to see how easily it all has been done. Interestingly, in this Part 1 pf the documentary, Trump is barely mentioned (the Trump campaign's interactions with Russia will be assessed in Part 2 of the documentary). "Was the IRA troll factory pro-Trump?", asks Gibney to one of the US experts interviewed for this. "It was anti-America", is the devastating response. And Gibney doesn't let off the Obama administration easily, calling into question why not more of what it knew in 2016 about the Russian tolling and the hacking was revealed to the American public." To anyone who is drinking the Trump Kool-Aid by the gallons, this documentary will of course be deemed "fake" and a "hoax", but the nuanced details with which Gibney and his team reveal what is going on show differently. That is why this documentary is utterly depressing yet must-see.
Part 1 of "Agents of Chaos" premiered earlier this week on HBO earlier this week, and is now available on HBO On Demand and other streaming services. Part 2 will follow very shortly. If you have any interest in understanding how Russia is meddling with our democracy, without any fear of retribution, I'd readily encourage you to check it out, and draw your own conclusion.
I only give it 9 stars because it could have been more detailed about how Russia interferes all over the West with its propaganda campaigns. There is an equally important story how Russia is generally trying to undermine the democratic West, so Putin doesn't look so bad being a dictator.
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- Runtime2 hours
- Color