ShareThisBy JOHN HAYES
Sunday, October 29, 2006
The knee-jerk on the left: Al Franken _ wry, satirical, nitpicking and combative, a dumpy Democratic Everyman with a sense of humor.
The knee-jerk on the right: Ann Coulter _ cuddly as nails on a blackboard, combative and nitpicking , a raging Republican femme fatale with legs up to here.
Put them together on stage with a milquetoast moderator and watch the mushroom cloud rise.
In "God Spoke," the producers who made James Carville a star in "The War Room," which trained its cameras on Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, follow the former "Saturday Night Live" comedian, political author, co-founder of the Chapter 11-protected liberal talk-radio network Air America, and presumptive senatorial candidate from Minnesota in the run-up to what looks like a 2007 political campaign.
The scene described above is a clip from a knock-down-drag-out debate pitting Franken against Coulter in what plays like a grudge match for the most polarizing political talking head. Coulter wins by cornering the comedian within his own punch line. In the debate _ that's too polite; it's almost a fistfight _ she charges that Democrats turned a televised memorial for deceased Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone into a political pep rally by booing Republicans off the stage. Franken quips that Republican Sen. Trent Lott wasn't even on the stage when he was booed, he was standing beside it.
"I can't believe that's your argument," fires Coulter, with incredulity, "that he wasn't actually on the stage." Touche.
Franken later whined that the editing made him look bad, but it's a key sequence in a documentary produced by liberal activists D.A. and Frazen Pennebaker illustrating that despite the film's pro-Franken slant, Franken didn't control the final cut.
"God Spoke" - the title is taken from a Franken comedy riff recorded during a Playboy magazine photo shoot - shows the slightly dorky if well-intentioned Franken being, well, frankly Franken.
Passionately on the left fringe of the Democratic Party, he can't stop joking long enough to explain what he finds there. Convinced that Republicans and their broadcasting cohorts are liars with evil intentions, he can't stop taunting them long enough to propose solutions of his own. Franken springs on conservative pit bulls Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, and even goes mano a mano with film critic Michael Medved, without bothering to clearly articulate his opposing views.
With no narration and little graphic set-up, directors Nick Doob and Chris Hegedus show Franken attacking the right without explaining the left, and behaving more like a ranting secular progressive talk-radio host than a thoughtful Democratic senator. The far left will love this film, the right wing will ignore it, and if Franken runs for senate "God Spoke" may be a 90-minute monkey on his back.
(John Hayes can be reached at jhayes(at)post-gazette.com)
