Mark Reviews Movies: AMERICAN CHAOS

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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 13, 2018

In the months leading up to the 2016 presidential election, filmmaker James D. Stern decided to go outside of his left-leaning bubble to interview supporters of then-candidate Donald Trump. His goal, he says early and alludes to often in American Chaos, was simply to listen to these people in an attempt to understand what he considered to be inexplicable.

Those who thought similarly about the idea of voting for the man who would become President of the United States will comprehend Stern's curiosity, and this documentary was definitely made for such people. There are a few miscalculations in Stern's goals and some significant errors in his approach, though.

The most noticeable blunder is his failure to maintain his central aim—simply to listen. There are a few times that Stern does challenge what a Trump supporter says, most notably when an older woman declares that a Hillary Clinton victory would be evidence of massive vote fraud across the country. The claim is preposterous, of course, and Stern tries to explain why. She isn't having any of it, obviously.

Such moments remind us that simply listening to each other isn't particularly effective in a democracy, and it might actually be harmful to our country when it comes to someone who willfully deals in falsehoods and engenders a cult of personality around himself. Stern seems to know this, but he intentionally sabotages his attempts to reach across the political aisle by remaining mostly silent. This leads to a head-scratching moment when he refuses to challenge a man who bluntly states that Clinton should be executed by the state for non-existent crimes. That gets a pass in Stern's mind, but specious allegations of voting fraud are where he has to draw the line.

To his credit, Stern does allow people who are politically opposed to him air their grievances in American Chaos, but at every turn, those concerns are undermined by a series of experts—filmed separately—who dig deeper into the tactics of Trump's campaign and what must be the hidden motives of those who would vote for him. It's a passive-aggressive technique that turns these subjects into "others" and feels disingenuous when placed against Stern's primary goal. If he really wanted to treat his subjects as rational people who just happen to have opposing ideas and ideals, maybe putting on the kid gloves wasn't the best approach.

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