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Title: Radical in all the wrong ways - snapshot of modern America.
Review: Friends of mine I respect adore this film, so I guess I should judge it on its own terms. It certainly captures a moment in post-modernity when history became a flat nothing, reduced to propaganda for the great project of American amnesia. I'd like to think the whole thing was sarcastic, never mind subversive. I wouldn't mind, but they get a relatively good idea and do nothing with it. You've got all these famous people from history, and you don't try to see how they'd spark off each other, or how they'd genuninely react to 'our' world. I suppose there is something subversive about taking self-important Great Men (and token woman who dressed like man) and making them ridiculous, but that would be satire, and this settles for sniggering. The inane script, thumpable acting and non-existent visual style are meant to be endearing. I guess I'm old-fashioned - it made me feel violent.
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