Movie Review: American Drug War
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With the release of Kevin Booth's new film I thought I'd take a look back this week at his last film, American Drug War. I'll have a review up soon of “How Weed Won The West.”
American Drug War points the finger at the effectiveness of the “war on drugs” and its progress in the self-destructive culture saturated with legal mind-and-body-altering substances. Kevin Booth offers his own family's plight with drugs, both legal and illegal, and alcohol addiction as inspiration for his journey.
Along the way we meet several persons touched by the drug war in their own way. We hear from Freeway Ricky Ross via prison telephone, who was known at one time as the “wal-mart of crack” because of his wide distribution in southern California. His story of regret for selling his community out, inter-cut with former DEA agent Celerino Castillo's discussion of the South American drug running of the CIA becomes the most damning story of our Federal Government's hypocrisy.
Kevin also gets Tommy Chong to tell how he was set up by a government sting operation to get his son's pipe company to send a pipe to a county that banned paraphernalia.
This isn't a one sided argument though, we hear from Sheriff Arpaio of Maricopa County, often thought of as the toughest law enforcement official in the country when it comes to enforcement and incarceration. His opinion on combating drugs and listening to him brag about treating the K9 units better than the prisoners makes one re-think the sanity of law enforcement.
We also hear from Clinton's Drug Czar. (Go Czars!) Kevin ambushed him disguising himself as a conservative lecture-attendee to get him to speak about the importance of the drug war, and it becomes clear that the Federal Government and its heads really have no idea what is going on in the streets of big-city-USA.
One of the most shocking things about the drug war is the ability to use inmates as slave labor. When you hear the true motives for why some drugs will never be de-criminalized, you might just start speaking out about the issue yourself.
Most films about drugs are often criticized by mainstream America as biased, not stating the dangers of the drugs, or for advocating their use. Kevin, on the other hand, shows you the harm drugs create in our society, and then shows you why the Federal Government's solution is no better.
Information: The camera takes you to the streets, in the jails, in Kevin's family, and in the face of government officials. The only thing missing is a Doctor's perspective - 4 Stars
Source Documentation: First hand interviews, along with scenes from C-Span of congressional hearings - 5 stars
Presentation Method: Rugged HBO-style documentary. (fitting since it aired on Showtime) – 4 stars
Visuals/Sound: Nothing fancy. But for this film it doesn't need to be. - 4 stars
Political & Social Spectrum: Completely Neutral in my opinion, however some of the more family-oriented conservatives might not like the angle. But in my opinion that's their bias, not Kevin's - 4 stars
Solution, Constitution, or Pollution: Pollution. While this film is great information, with the best interviews, it leads nowhere. At the end, you're left feeling that it's someone else's problem and that you, as an individual, or community, cannot change this giant scheme between government and security contractors. - 2 Stars
Overall Wake-up-ability: This film will give a slap in the face to anyone in the country who still thinks that the CIA or privatization of government entities are good things. Almost anyone in society can take a new point of view from this film, the only problem is lack of a solution. This film doesn't even give firm examples as to where our values can be improved. Sure, it's a Must-See movie, but it should be accompanied by a talk about what we can do to at least fix the mindset, if not start fixing the problem, but maybe that's the point of the film, to fix the mindset...but if that were the case, it would be free-distribution, which it isn't. – 4 stars
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