Al Franken is a funny man. Sure, he's an utterly polarizing figure, a comedian-turned-political-pundit beloved by the left and disdained by the right. But he is clearly well-educated, well-read, and he can be very funny. Unfortunately, you may not find any of that in the new documentary Al Franken: God Spoke. You may not find much of anything at all, actually. The real mystery of the movie is, quite simply, why it exists.
Essentially it follows Al Franken roughly starting with the 2003 release of his book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right through the debut of the left-wing radio station Air America, though the 2004 presidential election and his subsequent decision to consider running for Congress. Since he has, in fact, not yet run for Congress, those last passages go absolutely nowhere. Before that, through the bulk of the movie, we're treated to Franken fighting with Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, sitting at home with his wife, giving speeches to college kids, at the democratic convention, etc. etc.
Some of it is vaguely interesting, but this stuff, lets face it, is not the stuff that makes a movie. At times the filmmakers seem to simply be grasping at straws. At least a full minute is spent watching Franken try to unhinge a strap of a bag that's gotten stuck in the bottom of a chair. What is the point of this? Is it supposed to be funny? (It's not.) Is it supposed to illuminate some point I've missed? What's the message?
There is no message. The camera is a completely passive viewer, a fly on the wall of Franken's world. The documentary has absolutely nothing to say about anything except "hey look... Al Franken.” Wisely included are some old clips of Franken on Saturday Night Live, proving that he actually is a funny person, but mostly we see
a pretty normal guy who likes to get in fights about politics. And, for some reason, the movie opens with Franken, in a voice over, reading the opening paragraph of Lies. That leads us to believe the movie will be a sort of film version of the book, but its not. It's just a random way to open a movie.
I really can't think of anything else to say; the movie has succeeded in making me completely indifferent. It's neither good or bad; it just sits there. By the end, people who like Franken are probably not going to like him any more or less, and any opponent of Franken, if they see the movie at all, is likely to have no different opinion on him
