Chicago 10 | DVD Review

Proving that a judge’s gavel stick is not a recent invention, Brett Morgen’s time-lined courtroom doc – a hybrid between rotoscoping-like animation and well-edited archival footage might not beat out the in-court theatrics of the O.J Simpson trial, but it certainly cues viewers in on the zoo-like, comedy club ambiance that was in finger pointing, pointless trial that came about after the disaster of 68’s post-Chicago Democratic Convention. Chicago 10 has a zeal about it – a war cry and tomahawk chomp towards social and political injustices but this particular portion of American history might be of little interest to the generations named after the baby-boomers.

Film critics were receptive to 2007 Sundance’s opening film, but when it was released by Roadside Attractions almost a full year after its preem, it failed to garner audience interest – perhaps the folks are popped out from anything addressing political pasts and future. With a less than 15 movie theater opening, this doc only hit the less than 200,000
Box office mark, by documentary standards this is amazing, but Roadside Attractions were probably hoping for a little more return.

I think this like most of Participant Productions work in the last couple of years serves as a powerful teaching tool, but for fans of Morgen’s work – this might be less memorable than award-winning docs such as The Kid Stays in the Picture (2002) and On the Ropes (1999). Oddly, the end of the year will be bookmarked by another animated documentary called Waltz with Bashir which had the vibrancy and kick to the gut that this docu might have benefited from.


Sadly, there is no commentary track on Morgen’s part and no interviews with the surviving members or the actors who voiced the roles. It would have been nice to know why the filmmaker choose this specific subject matter (especially with Spielberg contemplating working on a feature version of the same events), and to know more about how he research the subject, and have him discuss the merging of docu-footage and the utilized animation techniques. The only extra item is…:

Remix Video short created by contest winner Gine Telaroli.
An amateur whips up a forgettable, faux trailer for the animated docu to the tune of Beastie Boy’s Sabotage.

While colorful animation and a contemporary soundtrack featuring blistering sounds from the likes of Rage against the Machine and Beastie Boys might symbolically match the sentiment found in the images, it fails to amplify what it was to pound that fist into the air, and while the pertinence of such a doc in today’s social climate can obviously be related to the breach of ethics under the Bush administration – it may be a tad more difficult to unite the movie-going troops who most likely share the anti-war sentiments but are far from belonging to an anti-war movement.

Movie rating – 2.5

Disc Rating – 1