This seems a bit much to establish the shocking fact that Presidents of the United States know a lot of stuff that your average joe on the street doesn't know. But that's essentially what this does. It talks about secrets we already know about (things like health issues with former presidents, for example - Woodrow Wilson's stroke, JFK's Addisons Disease and dependence on pain killers), it talks about things we don't know but that we know the President must know (like the fact that the United States must have secret weapons), it talks about the fact that there are probably things that even the President doesn't know (because, as Newt Gingrich points out, there's just too much to know, and someone has to decide what goes to the President and what doesn't), and there are vague conspiracy-like hints through the whole thing. It's a little bit heavy on 9/11, and although it bills itself as a journey inside White House history, it's most definitely biased toward recent history. There's lots on Obama and Bush, Jr., with preceding presidents from that point back getting progressively less attention. The earliest president mentioned as I recall was Woodrow Wilson, except for a perfunctory line at the end noting that the presidency exists in an unbroken chain dating back to George Washington. This doesn't reveal any particularly surprising information, and as a result it's biggest weakness as a documentary is that - really - you don't learn anything from it that you shouldn't already know if you're at all interested. The whole concept is developed around the idea that there might be (stress the might) a special "book of secrets" that every new president gets access to, and it regards with suspicion right from the start the secret, personal letter that every outgoing president leaves for every incoming president.
No doubt that presidents and former presidents form a sort of special club, if you will. Equally there's no doubt that there's knowledge within that special club that those not in the club don't have. This documentary established that and then - quite frankly - left me yawning and asking "so what?" (4/10)
No doubt that presidents and former presidents form a sort of special club, if you will. Equally there's no doubt that there's knowledge within that special club that those not in the club don't have. This documentary established that and then - quite frankly - left me yawning and asking "so what?" (4/10)