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Reviews Counted:54
Fresh:32
Rotten:22
Average Rating:5.9/10
Consensus: This documentary traces Franken's transformation from humorist to activist with entertaining, if uneven, results.
Runtime: 90 mins
Genre: Musical & Performing Arts
Synopsis: From his USO tour in Iraq, to the studios of liberal radio network Air America and on the campaign trail, filmmakers Nick Doob and Chris Hegedus are granted entre to one of the most effective... [More]
Starring: Al Franken, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Michael Medved
Director: Nicholas Doob, Chris Hegedus
There's a story to be told in Al Franken's transformation from smarty-pants Saturday Night Live personality to political commentator on the scrappy liberal radio station Air America, but Nick Doob and Chris Hegedus ... fail to find it.
The film is worth seeing for footage of Bill O’Reilly seeking sympathy from Ann Coulter, who makes maternal noises with a mischievous glint in her eye.
This scattershot movie, shot over two years, follows the zigzag trail of political satirist Al Franken as he feuds with Bill O'Reilly, campaigns against George W. Bush, and helps establish Air America.
There is a lot of preaching to the converted in Nick Doob and Chris Hedges' Al Franken: God Spoke, an adoring and fairly haphazard look behind the scenes with the comedian and liberal gadfly.
The film is most compelling for its suggestion of how politics and showbiz are at once incestuously entwined and, perhaps, irreconcilably different.
cheated of some much-needed integrity
... best viewed as an investigation of the phenomenon of ideological celebrity, with Mr. Franken as a willing case study.
Top CriticFranken handles everything with his inimitable sense of humor, which helps his message go down much smoother.
Somewhere beneath this hollow shell lies a real film about a gentle rebel with a cause.
Funny-man turned politico given the Pennebaker treatment.
Though not as thorough as War Room, docu is still highly entertaining and poignant, if not too critical or deep, offering a portrait of a new kind of American folk hero, more iconoclastic (not to mention witty and charming) than Michael Moore.
A better, less passé film about Al Franken's wife Franni forming the backbone of her husband's career lies dormant here, as does the man's rebel spirit.
Dull, dull, dull.
What I was really itching for was for him to leave the political battlefield long enough to give us a scripted stand-up act as he'd do it for an audience at The Improv.
The film only sporadically succeeds in providing biographical information or thematic depth, but Franken is such a witty and thoughtful presence that these flaws don't matter greatly.
Top CriticThis smoothly edited snapshot of a roaring mouse... is an outspoken and pretty damn funny portrait...
The scope ought to be narrowed, but the film is still pretty entertaining in places, owing to Franken's intelligence and quick wit.
A cinema-verite portrait that proves more celebratory than revelatory.
Top CriticFranken is a master and we need someone like him to both laugh at and pound his fist at the other side for their own God-like attitudes that what they say is the spoken, written and final word on the subject.
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