It's an interesting documentary, but most of it, kinda does stray away from the title of the film. I really thought, coming in. That the movie was going showcase alternate history, where America does not exist in the world. Instead, the documentary directed by Dinesh D'Souza of 2012's 2016: Obama's America's fame, made a movie criticizing the people that promote the teachings of shaming America. Based on D'Souza's book of the same name, D'Souza defends America against various accusations that has surface in recent years. In his opinion, he believes that democrats, liberalism and progressives under the Obama administration are shaming the US through revisionist history to destroy America's imagine of Capitalism and usher a new socialism government. This claim is a bit off-putting for a documentary. Normally, a documentary is supposed to show something true in its true state. Instead, the director felt like trying to promote his point of view, and use scapegoating as a mean to an end. While, it's great that he point out some misunderstood facts about America's past; his information is really felt one-sided and preachy. The over patriotism cheese didn't help. The film does have a handful of dramatic not so historic reenactment that is in the level of History Channel type of a production. Most were well-done. The segments with Alexis de Tocqueville at the dinner table was very humorous. I found it, very funny in it's 'so bad, it's good'. I like when the movie makes American community organizer, Saul Alinsky sound like the devil. The forced evil music hypothetical dramatization tone that goes along with a reenactment sequence of a young Hillary Clinton meeting Saul Alinsky, laughably bad. D'Souza's knowledge is defective; due to the biased nature, of how, he present the information. He sounds educated, but his knowledge of American society and history are very shallow. He acts like Republicans only done good things for the nation, while democrats only made it worst, off. This is an understatement. Both parties have done some good and some bad. Even Capitalism has its good moments and its bad. He makes reform sound like the worst, thing ever. Think of a world without Social Security, Medicare, and Social Securities and Exchange Commission. The world would look like an awful game of Monopoly. D'Souza also understandably gloss over most his claims and the other person claims without thinking for once, that there are always two side of the story. There has to always been economy reform, and economy freedom. You can't do anything, without it. Also, there are things good about America's past, but there are moments that does bring shame to America. Usually, a documentary filmmaker is expected to adhere to reasonable standards of journalistic integrity and remember to do the research. The movie has a few bullet points, 'shaming' topics that are open to discussion here in the documentary. They are; did Americans steal land and cause genocide to the Native Americans and the Mexicans? Second is did American exploited African slave labor to build the American economy? Third is, does U.S. wars abroad have involved imperial and evil capitalism motives? The argumentation that D'Souza point out against those topics are very interesting. His claims are very well argument, but it's a bit whitewashing, to act like bad things don't happen in the US, too. I do not take sides. You'll find me quite ready to criticize both parties and any form of government. I do have to agree, that disease did killed most of the Native Americans, but also the government did play a role, in driving Native Americans from their lands. As for African slaves, D'Souza is content to point out that some whites were indentured servants and some blacks owned slaves themselves. This was very thought-provoking and indeed rarely talk about. Still, slave labor did build the U.S economy. Were Mexican territories conquered? Yeah, D'Souza submits to that, but then, he gets a Mexican-American Republican presidential candidate, Ted Cruz to say that Mexico is better off, being part of the United States, than its own. This has to be the most ridiculous statement in the whole movie. Despite their government problems, I think Mexicans are glad to have their own independence country. They have a lot of national pride. Yes, people from Mexico account for a large part of the undocumented population living in the United States, but their share has diminished in recent year since their economy has been getting better. Yes, certain immigrants to the United States are indeed better off here than in their old countries, but a lot of these old countries are now, develop countries of their own. Many have choice to stay in their own country because those countries chose to embrace the free market ideas. About U.S being kinda imperialism because of that. I have to agree with him, there is no reason for us to be apologetic for making the world, a better place. It's a little better than living in a fascism or totalitarianism type of a world. The worst thing in the documentary is that D'Souza claiming, he was set up, and shamed on purpose by the Obama administration when he was indicted in Jan, 2014, on charges of making illegal political contributions to a 2012 United States Senate campaign. It's really hard to believe his claim when the author has also been taken to court for embezzling money from his film projects to pay off his mistress and forced to resign his position as college president due to that scandal. It doesn't help, that he was forced to apologize for anti-Semitic quotations during it. Overall: The film did not perform as well as D'Souza's earlier film 2016: Obama's America. It tries to present the other side of the story and I give the movie, credit on that, but despite the somewhat higher production values and additional talking heads, the result still comes across as wishful thinking at best, manipulative and self-congratulatory at worst.
