DVDebut for Antonino D'Ambrosio's hero cop documentary, FRANK SERPICO

The idea that anyone -- back in 1973 when the film Serpico first appeared, or now, some 45 years later, with the DVD release of the new documentary, FRANK SERPICO, about that New York City cop-turned-whistleblower --- could question whether Frank Serpico was a hero or a "rat" (as so many of his fellow cops, a lot of whom were corrupt, on-the-take sleaze-bags, would call him then and still do today), offers a clear perspective as to why the United States of America continues to struggle so mightily for anything approaching justice and parity for its citizens.

While the earlier film, directed with his usual grit and realism by the late Sidney Lumet, was terrifically entertaining and timely (and remains so today), the new documentary written, produced and directed by Antonino D'Ambrosio (shown at left), proves a surprising and often fascinating addition to the Serpico story.

Mr. D'Ambosio's name seemed somewhat familiar to TrustMovies, so I checked my past posts to find I'd reviewed an earlier film of his, another documentary concerned with American justice entitled Let Fury Have the Hour (click the link for the review).

I'm happy to report that the filmmaker's new documentary is a considerably more cogent and focused piece of work.

Beginning with a scene in which Mr. Serpico (shown above, back in the 70s, and below more currently) explains how, as a police officer, he had to arrest prostitutes and how much he detested that kind of work, the documentary then moves to American history and our country's anti-Italian prejudice, Serpico's own family history, including his grandfather and father, from both of whom he seems to have inherited much of his moral compass.

This fellow proves quite a low-key but very compelling host and raconteur, and D'Ambrosio's filmic style, perhaps deliberately in keeping with that of his subject, is measured and quiet, never glossy nor hyped. Together, filmmaker and subject make for an excellent combination that never needs to plead for our trust but instead gets it quite naturally.

We hear from a number of Serpico's partners and friends (one of these is shown above) from the old days, including the partner he had on the day he was shot in the head -- an event that remains as suspicious now as it seemed at the time, since this man had made it his mission to try to bring to light, top to bottom, the corruption that was endemic throughout the New York City Police Department.

This shooting takes place midway through the film and its aftermath, which is, in a sense, still going on, takes up the remainder of the movie. We learn how Serpico, once he got out of the hospital, managed to get the police report regarding his shooting, which showed that, instead of the police themselves reporting one of their own being felled, the call to the police actually came from a civilian. That's how much the cops cared about saving the life of this man.

Then we see a little of the famous Knapp Commission, in which NYC police corruption was investigated, and to which Serpico provided much of the background and evidence. We hear (and see now) from his then-lawyer, Ramsey Clark (above, left).

Over a drink, we're privy to a meeting between him and his ex-partner in which that partner accuses Serpico of only going after cops as the bad guys but not their bosses.  "How would you do that?" Frank asks him. "I don't know. I didn't even try," comes the abashed response. We see and hear a lot about the negative response to Serpico's whistleblowing, and how the police want to paint it all as "us against them." But, as Ramsey Clark points out, that is incorrect because in reality, "It's only us." Or it should be. Funny how power and corruption always divide things.

There's some time, too, devoted to afterward, as our cop moves first to a farm in Northern Holland, and then finally to a home in upstate New York. D'Ambrosio ends his documentary with a huge rallying cry for justice and honesty now. The event that closes the film, together with the last line of dialog spoken, makes for a memorable humdinger of a finale.

From Sundance Selects and IFC Films, Frank Serpico hits the street on DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, March 13 -- for purchase and/or rental.

In I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO, Raoul Peck reminds us of James Baldwin's continued relevance

TrustMovies came of age at just about the time that James Baldwin -- essayist, novelist, playwright, short-story writer and the deepest thinker regarding race in America that had yet appeared -- hit his creative stride. To my mind this man (born in 1924, died in 1987) remains still the deepest thinker about race in America we've had, combining first-hand experience with thoughtful, honest analysis to reach the kind of conclusions that America, particularly its white contingent, had not been able to even form, let alone digest, on its own. It still, for the most part, has not.

All of which makes Raoul Peck's fine documentary (the filmmaker is shown at left) -- using only the words of Mr. Baldwin, along with archival film clips in which he (and a few others) speak -- so important and relevant to our current time. One listens to his words here with as keen an ear as possible (you may want to watch the film a second time), simply to better be able to take it all in. The documentary ostensibly jumps off from Baldwin's plan to write a book on the lives/deaths of three important figures from recent black history -- Medgar Evers (shown below, with Baldwin),

Martin Luther King (below, right) and Malcolm X (below, left) -- all of whom Baldwin knew. He did not live to complete this book, leaving behind only a minimal manuscript, so the film uses this, as well as his other writings, along with the archival (and some much closer to present-day) visuals, to give us Baldwin's look at America. The view isn't pretty, and it forces us -- especially those left-leaning, "right-thinking," would-be liberals among us -- to assess our own past and present and how seriously we've ever taken the idea that "black lives matter." How closely have we entered any of those black lives to discover how they were lived and/or spent?

Hearing Baldwin's words (via the voice of Samuel L. Jackson) while viewing the visuals makes for a compelling experience on a number of levels, reminding us of events we were part of back in the day, while allowing us to see the way in which these events were consistently refracted through our lens of "whiteness." This is true as much with the lives/deaths of Evers, King and Malcolm X, and the various protest movements -- then and now -- as it was with slavery (and its follow-up experience) and all the rest of American history.

The great strength of the film, and of Baldwin's writing, is the way in which it (together with Peck's visuals) forces us to see and acknowledge all this. Among the many highlights is Baldwin's book-end appearance on the Dick Cavett television show which begins the film and comes again near its end. The second appearance includes a face-off with a white Yale professor who offers up the usual platitudes about black life having improved over time and so please-stop-making-everything-about-being-black-or-white. Baldwin's answer to this is a combination of enormous passion coupled to absolute specifics regarding the black experience in which he decimates those platitudes.

How does one truly put himself in the shoes of another? Well, first off, you have to honestly, genuinely try. Mr. Peck -- together with the inspiration, intelligence and toil of Mr. Baldwin -- has given us one enormous shove in the right direction.

I Am Not Your Negro -- from Magnolia Pictures and Amazon Studios, and running 95 minutes -- opens this Friday, February 3, in New York City at Film Forum, The Film Society of Lincoln Center and the AMC Magic Johnson Harlem 9; in Los Angeles at the Arclight Hollywood and The Landmark; and here in Miami at the O Cinema, Wynwood, and the Regal South Beach 18.

To see all currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters listed, click here and then keep scrolling down.

See Edward Snowden blow that whistle in Laura Poitras' odd and alarming doc, CITIZENFOUR

A documentary that pretty much tells itself -- with some questions, of course, about what was chosen for inclusion and what was not -- CITIZENFOUR shows and tells the tale of how and why whistle-blower Edward Snowden first approached journalist/filmmaker Laura Poitras (shown below) and journalist Glen Greenwald in order to go public concerning the illegal surveillance being carried out on the American populace (and elsewhere throughout the world) by the NSA in collusion with our government.

However you define Mr. Snowden on the chart/scale from terrorist to crimi-nal to whistle-blower to hero, the movie should be of great interest simply in allowing you to see and hear him in action and repose. Well, as much repose as someone in his singular state at this time could manage. (We do see him groom-ing himself and trying to get a certain hair style down pat. Ah, vanity! On the other hand, he's human, so why the hell not?)

Poitras has inter-cut various interviews and archival footage having to do with the way we are governed now -- spied upon illegally, as our President assures us that nothing of the sort is taking place. (Just as George W. Bush was an in-office liar, so now is Barack Obama.) This information sets the scene, against which we can place what has happened because of Snowden's actions into some kind of perspective.

When he tells us and Poitras (and Greenwald, with whom he is shown, above) what he is doing and why, and especially how he feels it needs to be handled so that his actions can be perceived less in any personal way that would turn the spotlight on him rather than where it needs to be -- on what the NSA is doing illegally -- I find the young man, as I think you will, too, to be believable and not a little heroic. He also explains why he does not himself feel able to determine which of the information he is sending is actually a matter of National Security, and so must leave that to journalists who are more informed on this subject.

Along with visuals of some of the written communications between our protagonists (the above is one of the less interesting of these), we hear from other whistle-blowers like William Binney, who was an NSA employee, and watch, too, as another liar, Keith Alexander, purgers himself in his testimony. It is against all this that Mr. Snowden's revelations take on their impact. And when toward the end of this engaging and alarming documentary, Jacob Appelbaum explains to us that our current concerns over privacy are really just an extension of the liberty and freedom we have been seeking since, well, the American Revolution, the movie should ring a very loud alarm bell.

Too often asleep at the wheel of our own presumed liberty, we need to be roused into some kind of action -- which is what these whistle-blowers keep trying to do. Eventually, our own government, if its swing to the moneyed and powerful continues, will become the facility that enslaves us completely. Meanwhile we can thank Snowden and his ilk for having the courage to do their part, and journalists and filmmakers like Greenwald and Poitras for bringing the work of these whistle-blowers to our attention.

One final jolt is provided by Greenwald, who lets us know that he has a new whistle-blower waiting in the wings. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, Citizenfour (from Radius/TWC and running 114 minutes), which doubles as the name of the film and the moniker taken by Snowden, begins its theatrical run this Friday, October 24, in New York City at the IFC Center and the Lincoln Plaza Cinema. Elsewhere? No doubt. And eventually onto DVD and digital. 

WAR ON WHISTLEBLOWERS: Robert Greenwald's doc hits hard--and hits home

What a shame that our first black (more properly, mixed-race) President would turn out to be a closet fascist, albeit it one who pushes health care (so long as it keeps the insurance companies in clover). But them's the breaks. Is anyone really surprised? Really? In these days when money courts power and the two of them march down the aisle with literally every American elected public official eventually following hard and fast behind?

Among the most disastrous and disappointing aspects of the Obama regime is how thoroughly and disgustingly this man -- who claimed he would provide a transparent government -- and his chief underling, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder (below), have gone after -- of all things -- whistleblowers who are trying to call to the attention of the American people (and the rest of the world) wrongs that need to be righted and suppressed information that should see the light of day. And this, on top of nearly zero prosecution of the bankers and Wall Street criminals, whose sleaze has left so much of the U.S.population in dire financial and employment straits, all the while spying illegally on the America public (and anyone else they could manage), pushing us all the closer to the ultimate "Big Brother" state. No, children, I am not referring to that "TV show."

In his newest film dedicated to unveiling the veiled, WAR ON WHISTLEBLOWERS: FREE PRESS AND THE NATIOMNAL; SECURITY STATE, filmmaker Robert Greenwald (shown below) offers for our delectation all this in sharp detail, especially concerning the work of four important whistleblowers: what they did and why they did it, and why their "blowing" is so important to our freedom.

Greenwald also links this war against whistleblowers with other current activity designed to remove more and more of our supposed freedoms. (I say supposed because I am not at all sure they remain with us.) Greenwald has long been a muckraker, with muck imminently worthy of raking. The bigger question is whether the Ameri-can people care to listen and understand, and then to act on what they know. It appears that the answer is no, and so, as usual, we deserve the politicians we elect to serve -- not us, but the powerful and monied who actually funded them.

We hear the stories of the quartet of current men who've blown the whistle in four very different areas (plus an ex-whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg of The Pentagon Papers), and these tales are all shocking, moving and more-than-a-little anger-making. That's Thomas Tamm, above, who outed the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping, and Franz Gayle, below, who first blew the whistle on the U.S. military during the Iraq War for its crappy Humvees that were defenseless against roadside IEDs.

Some stories have relatively happy endings for the problems, but few do for the whistleblower himself (Gayle, who got his security clearance and his job back, is a rare exception). Michael DeKort, below, who blew the whistle on the U.S. Coast Guard's Deepwater Program, now works nowhere near the capacity or salary he had.

The story of Thomas Drake, below, is perhaps the oddest because, though a whistleblower, he did nothing that was illegal, and yet the government seemed to want to use him as a case study to scare any and all future whistleblowers. And this, from people whose illegal wiretapping and torture still goes on.

The men themselves can only be seen as heroes who cared enough to actually do something. The movie was made too soon to say much about Bradley Manning, and well before Edward Snowden, shown below, made his fateful decision. But you'll better understand at least some of their motivating factors after seeing this fine film.

War on Whistleblowers, via The Disinformation Company and running 67 minutes, after a limited theatrical release earlier this year, makes its DVD debut tomorrow, Tuesday, July 30, and will be available for sale or rental, from your usual sources (though Netflix, I see, does not offer it. Bad!). To watch a trailer for the film, click.

Malik Bendjelloul's SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN: most important film of the year so far

That truth can be stranger -- more powerful and more wonderful -- than fiction gets a good going over (the best I've seen in a long time) with the documentary SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN from Scandinavian filmmaker Malik Bendjelloul. This movie, ostensibly about the search for what really became of a folk-rock singer from the 1960s/70s who is said to have committed suicide by burning himself to death in front of a live audience, raises all kinds of and so many interesting questions, more than it could possibly answer. Yet you can't watch the film without having these questions pop up, together with their answers, some of which the documentary provides, others that you yourself will piece together, even as you heart soars and your eyes well up and then rather copiously spill over. As mystery, history, social commentary and more, this is one eye-opening, mind-expanding, spellbinding film.

The filmmaker, Mr. Bendjelloul (shown at left) begins with a pleasant but unknown song on the soundtrack, as we drive along a beautiful, mountainous coastal highway in present-day South Africa and learn a bit about this fellow named Rodriguez. Then it's back to 1960s Detroit and the club scene there, as some guys who were part of the music industry back then talk about their discovery of this song-writer/singer/guitarist, shown below, who liked to stay in the shadows and always wore dark glasses.

These industry people were certain they had found a performer as good, important and original in his way as was Dylan. "Nobody else but Dylan was doing anything this good," notes one of them. (In this section, Benjelloul offers his own animated version of 60s Detroit, one of several times in which animation is used most interes-tingly.) In any case, these music people persuade Rodriguez to make a album of his material, which he does. It flops. Nobody hears it (outside of a few music industry professionals), so nobody buys it. Finito. One of those pros, below, thinks it's good enough to warrant a second album, so he produces one. (We hear from him now, retired, and living in Palm Springs.)

Soon after, in South Africa, during the height and heartlessness of Apartheid, those albums make their way to the southern tip of the dark continent, where, bootlegged, they become the byword for disaffected youth of South Africa and, in their own way, weapons against Apartheid.

From here, this marvelous story grows richer and deeper, as a few musicians and/or musicologists (above and below) determine to discover just what happened to Rodriguez. That suicide-by-fire story is crap, we're told. No, he pulled out a gun on stage and shot himself. These people pour over the man's lyrics to find clues (the city of Dearborn is one such), and when they hit a dead end, they just try again. "To a detective, " one tell us, "an obstacle is an inspiration!"

What they find is the occasion for all that joy and those tears, as well as for more of the ideas and questions that keep cropping up. The word "hero" is never mentioned, I believe, but if Rodriguez is not a true American hero, then there is no such thing. Of course he himself would never use the word nor admit to this. But given what we learn, there is plenty of reason to honor someone like him rather than the usual suspects (politicians of any stripe or, god help us, the Donald Trumps of the world).

We also learn how true art survives and grows, and about how little we really knew of South Africa under Apartheid -- even given Lionel Rogosin's attempt with Come Back Africa. And why didn't those two albums succeed here on their home ground? This implicates not only consumers who barely got word of the works but our revered guardians of culture -- the critics -- as well as all those who might have given the albums radio play. What? Was there not enough payola circulating to make it worth anyone's time and effort.

Oh, yes: And what happened to the money from the sales of all those albums in South Africa? Someone made a lot of lucre, and it wasn't Rodriguez. As I say, there are questions here aplenty, but it is to the movie-maker's credit that he allows them all to surface without feeling hell-bent to answer each.  Searching for Sugar Man will have you considering so much about life in America (and elsewhere), about the uses of art and performance, about work and the work ethic, about family and history and what is worth honoring in this world of ours that I think you simply must see it.

From Sony Pictures Classics -- the distributor that often has the lock on Best Foreign Film; this year it might have the Best Documentary, as well -- and running just 85 minutes, Searching for Sugar Man hits theaters in New York (the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and the Angelika Film Center) and Los Angeles (The Landmark) this Friday, July 27. It'll be opening around the country starting next week and over the coming months. Click here to see all the currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters.