This movie is prime material for those on one or the other side of the issue, so it might be hard for its target audience (or those who would see it to refute it -- the tone of the first post leads one to infer that sort of thing occurs too). I personally thought President Clinton showed a lack of public integrity in his actions -- having an affair in the White House while an investigation is going on about his sex habits in AR, and stonewalling when it came out. I also had mixed feelings about some of his politics.
Still, we are talking a matter of degree here. It is hard to look at the facts, even without a Friend of Bill being involved as here, and not see the excesses. This film does a pretty good job at touching upon some of them (I have not read the book it was based on by a Arkansas reporter and Joe Conanson). It clearly is not neutral, though the situation makes it hard to be. One thing it doesn't do is totally exonerate Clinton. Various of the talking heads noted they were upset or worse about his whole Monica fiasco. It just thought it was not worthy of impeachment and victimization of a lot of little people. Whitewater was shown to be a whole lot of smoke no fire both by a report and the ind. counsel as well. Enron it was not.
Facts are shown. The movie starts off a bit fake with a lot of clips from old movies and a tone right out of a cut rate film noir movie to "sex" up the proceedings to keep our interest. It also hypes up the "conspiracy" angle a bit too much. This sort of heavyhandedness is ratcheted down some by the half way point, especially with the entrance of Susan McDougal, the heroine of the film. The portrayal is one-sided (troubling, even if she's totally innocent), but quite emotional and effective. The account of the pressure put on her to plea and her time in jail was particularly emotional.
So, mixed result -- there is a pretty strong case that abuses were carried out, good evidence that a lot of the parties against Clinton were suspicious and led more by hate and distaste than the facts, and some evidence of a lot of additional shadiness. It would have helped if the film interviewed someone to dispute Susan M., and likely such a p.o.v. was in the book. Overall, tries to prove too much, but there is enough "there" there to be worth watching to remember and get a flavor of the doings in AR.
Still, we are talking a matter of degree here. It is hard to look at the facts, even without a Friend of Bill being involved as here, and not see the excesses. This film does a pretty good job at touching upon some of them (I have not read the book it was based on by a Arkansas reporter and Joe Conanson). It clearly is not neutral, though the situation makes it hard to be. One thing it doesn't do is totally exonerate Clinton. Various of the talking heads noted they were upset or worse about his whole Monica fiasco. It just thought it was not worthy of impeachment and victimization of a lot of little people. Whitewater was shown to be a whole lot of smoke no fire both by a report and the ind. counsel as well. Enron it was not.
Facts are shown. The movie starts off a bit fake with a lot of clips from old movies and a tone right out of a cut rate film noir movie to "sex" up the proceedings to keep our interest. It also hypes up the "conspiracy" angle a bit too much. This sort of heavyhandedness is ratcheted down some by the half way point, especially with the entrance of Susan McDougal, the heroine of the film. The portrayal is one-sided (troubling, even if she's totally innocent), but quite emotional and effective. The account of the pressure put on her to plea and her time in jail was particularly emotional.
So, mixed result -- there is a pretty strong case that abuses were carried out, good evidence that a lot of the parties against Clinton were suspicious and led more by hate and distaste than the facts, and some evidence of a lot of additional shadiness. It would have helped if the film interviewed someone to dispute Susan M., and likely such a p.o.v. was in the book. Overall, tries to prove too much, but there is enough "there" there to be worth watching to remember and get a flavor of the doings in AR.