"Steal This Movie"
This disgraceful biopic reduces yippie Abbie Hoffman to slogans and stunts.
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By Charles Taylor
Aug. 18, 2000 |
[EXCERPT]
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Steal This Movie
Directed by Robert Greenwald
Starring Vincent D'Onofrio, Janeane Garofalo, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Kevin Pollak
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...The acting news here is Garofalo, who has spent much of her movie career doing a variation on the deadpan sarcasm of her stand-up routine. But here, Garofalo suggests a real person who has tried to maintain an equilibrium through some very desperate times. She plays Anita's devotion to Abbie, even after he takes up with Johanna, not as submission to the sexism that riddled the counterculture but as this woman's personal ethics of loyalty. If Greenwald does nothing else right in "Steal This Movie" he does right by Garofalo. He's allowed her to shine. Freed of the self-deprecating remarks she constantly makes at the expense of her own self-image, out of the schlumpy clothes which she has held onto as a (frankly adolescent) statement against the tyranny of fashion, Garofalo is free to reveal to the camera what has been perfectly obvious to everyone but her: This is a very attractive woman.
Garofalo's Anita, who died of breast cancer two years ago, is the fullest character in "Steal This Movie." Yet her performance has to bear the burden of being the only satisfying thing in a film that otherwise squanders a rich subject. Abbie Hoffman deserves gratitude for his commitment and for a thousand laughs. He deserves better than "Steal This Movie" gives him.
salon.com | Aug. 18, 2000
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