>Running on Empty
>
>The Abbie Hoffman story, sanitized
>for popular consumption
>
>By Richard von Busack
>
>MetroActive Movies
>
>ANOTHER WATERED-DOWN DOSE of
>counterculture glory, sanitized for your
>protection: Do not try this revolution at home;
>polygamy is not healthy for children or other
>living things; drugs are bad, m'kay? Even though
>Vincent D'Onofrio plays Abbie Hoffman, the
>pallid Steal This Movie is a Lifetime channel
>version of 1960s revolution. The film's decision
>to make Hoffman a nostalgia item is the first
>note of trouble. Steal This Movie begins in the
>mid-'70s, years after Hoffman has gone
>underground. Reporter David Glenn (Alan Van
>Spang) is interviewing Abbie's wife, Anita
>(Janeane Garofalo), and friends who knew him
>for a profile of the rebel.
>
>One of the subjects is Abbie's lawyer (Kevin
>Pollak), who hints darkly of FBI schemes to
>discredit Hoffman. In flashback, we see
>Hoffman's actions: his demonstrations, his
>nomination of a pig for president and the trial of
>the Chicago Seven. Eventually, Hoffman is
>unearthed, living under an assumed name with
>his new girlfriend, Johanna (Jeanne
>Tripplehorn), in upstate New York. Hoffman's
>efforts to reach out to his estranged young son,
>america, are juxtaposed with the end of his long
>run as a fugitive and his problems with bipolar
>disorder.
>
>The real Hoffman can be sampled in the pages
>of Steal This Book, from which the title of this
>movie is taken. Rejected by 30 publishers, Steal
>This Book is a 1971 version of The Anarchist
>Cookbook, with tips on shoplifting, hijacking
>planes, building pipe bombs--and more
>artsy-crafty stuff, like making sandals out of
>used automobile tires. Re-reading it, I can
>imagine that Hoffman would feel right at home
>today on the Internet, distributing pranks and
>communiqus of various usefulness.
>[The Anarchist's Cookbook isn't a very kind
>comparison, considering that its bomb recipes
>will blow up in your face and its drug recipes
>will poison you. --DC]
>
>It may be that Hoffman's seriousness is only
>proved in opposition to his serious enemies: the
>FBI and the Nixon regime's determination to
>stamp out extremists in the youth movement.
>Steal This Movie doesn't capture the funny side
>of Hoffman's protests. Not because time has
>made them unfunny, not at all, but because
>they're badly staged by director Robert
>Greenwald. The only way to make Hoffman live
>onscreen is to show him in his time, absolutely
>convinced that the government is about to
>topple. But Steal This Movie tells us that
>Hoffman's life as a husband and father is more
>interesting to a modern audience than the
>politics. Part of the film's failure is due to
>Garofalo, the most un-'60s actor imaginable. In
>one scene, she describes how she sometimes
>preferred it when her husband was sick, because
>then she could take care of him. "I don't know if
>that's normal or not," she says. Has Garofalo
>ever struck you as a woman who had a
>moment's doubt in her life about what was
>normal or not? On the contrary, her dedication
>to normalness is what makes her such a
>tiresome, limited performer.
>
>At the end, D'Onofrio's Hoffman addresses the
>youth of today about their duty to be
>revolutionaries, but this film doesn't give them
>much impetus to rebel. Seeing Hoffman's pain,
>exile and paranoia would make them disinclined
>to struggle. If you were there in the 1960s,
>watching Steal This Movie will scramble your
>memories, leaving you feeling old and
>disappointed. If you're young, here's another
>impatience-producing lesson about what great
>days they were, and what a noble fight it all was
>... and yes, mistakes were made--the usual
>lecture, nothing a young person wants or needs
>to hear.
>
>Steal This Movie (R; 108 min.), directed by Robert
>Greenwald, written by Abbie and Anita Hoffmann, Marty
>Lezer and Bruce Graham, photographed by Denis Lenoir
>and starring Vincent D'Onofrio and Janeane Garofalo,
>opens Friday.
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