In the new documentary "An Unreasonable Man," directors Henriette Mantel and Steve Skrovan go to extraordinary lengths to portray Ralph Nader as a capital-G "Great American," a kind of perpetually noble mix between John Wayne and Don Quixote, forever fighting the good fight on behalf of the metaphorical little guy.
I couldn't disagree more. Somehow, I suspect the hundreds of thousands of kids who go to bed every night with visions of their parents dodging IEDs in Iraq would disagree too. I also have to believe the 19-year-old soldier sitting in a dilapidated room in Walter Reed, wondering why he can't find a doctor who will treat the infections on the stumps where his hands used to be, is going to be particularly sympathetic to Nader apologists like Mantel and Skrovan.
"An Unreasonable Man" is the very definition of reckless, disingenuous and intellectually bankrupt filmmaking. The movie is being billed as a thoughtful analysis of Nader's complex legacy, but anybody wanting such insight will need to go elsewhere. Mantel and Skrovan aren't filmmakers — they're cheerleaders, and their documentary (if you can call it that) is nothing more than a two-hour valentine to Ralph Nader's favorite person: Ralph Nader.
The filmmakers seem fundamentally unconcerned with how much blood — if any — Nader has on his hands. This seems to be a relevant question, perhaps the only relevant question, concerning Nader's legacy (unless you count that whole fight with David Stern), and the movie completely ignores it. I'm not making a judgment about the relative merits of the Iraq war, but it is probably fair to say that America would not be at war in Iraq had Al Gore been elected president in 2000. And Gore would have been elected president had Ralph Nader not campaigned for president in the state of Florida.
Did Gore run a good campaign in 2000? No. Did George W. Bush best him at pretty much every turn? Yes. But most rational people seem to agree that Nader and his kamikaze candidacy were instrumental in derailing the hopes of a Gore presidency. This is where the movie loses all credibility and enters the realm of dishonesty: Mantel and Skrovan are so in awe of their subject that they are willing to disregard basic truths and common sense in favor of fierce denials about Nader's impact on the election results. They continually play up his outsider standing, as if saying that there is no way an irrelevant third-party candidate like Nader could have had any effect on taking down Al Gore and Joe Lieberman. This is a curious argument akin to saying a toddler holding a smoking gun couldn't have shot his parent, because he wouldn't have been able to kill him if they were fighting with machetes.
How can you spend half a century advocating progressive reforms and then knowingly put the country you claim to be looking out for in a situation where it will be led by the most conservative president in history? This is the central problem with Nader's legacy, and the movie doesn't address it. There's no red meat here.
When he's on camera, Nader comes off as pathetic and needy. He's a sweaty, stammering bundle of nerves, with ill-fitting shirts and a noncommittal haircut. In short, he looks like what he has always been — a loser disappointed to be consigned to the outside while the popular kids are in the gym enjoying the dance.
Perhaps the most disturbing trend in the movie is the fact that almost every one of Nader's major choices seem to come out of some manufactured feeling of alienation. Friends claim part of his anger with Gore simply came out of the fact that the vice president would not take a meeting whenever Nader came calling. Later, we are treated to an embarrassing batch of footage from 2000 where Nader, angry about not being issued an invitation to debate Vice President Gore and then-Governor of Texas Bush, tries to crash the first presidential debate. At no point does it look like anybody involved with the production took the time to ask Nader about his grandstanding.
The directors allow Nader to slide back and forth between two contrasting personas without calling out the dichotomy: Nader seems trapped between thinking he is totally irrelevant and simultaneously the most important man who has ever lived.
Only a fool would say Nader's early accomplishments should be totally discounted. America has him to thank for more seat belts, safer meat and cleaner air. For a time, he was a force for change in American society. Yes, the movie chronicles his battles with General Motors and Congress, but in focusing so heavily on these early battles and the presidential campaigns, the movie inadvertently reinforces the long-held notion that Nader has become an irrelevant force. Where was Ralph Nader during the Savings and Loan scandals of the 1980s? Where was Ralph Nader during the recent corporate crime outbreak? Where was Ralph Nader when hundreds of thousands of Americans claimed to be disenfranchised in 2000, 2002 and 2004? He had to be doing something, but the movie isn't telling, possibly for the very reason that there is nothing to tell. In the last twenty-odd years, we are forced to draw the conclusion that when the going got tough, Ralph got going.
All of this could be excused if the filmmakers played fair, but they don't. I'll say it again — this movie is a fraud. It allows its subject to run wild and seems terrified to call him on anything. The second half of the film, centering around Nader's presidential campaigns, should be the most dramatic and provocative aspect of the film, but Mantel and Skrovan go out of their way to make excuses for their subject. They bob and weave their way around holding Nader's feet to the flames, even for a little bit. Nader himself never takes the opportunity to show any contrition to his supporters.
To be fair, the movie offers token (if well-reasoned) opposition from the likes of The Nation's Eric Alterman and Columbia University's Todd Gitlin, which ends up being the most challenging and heartfelt part of the movie. But this analysis seems to have been watered down in the editing room (notice how both men seem to frequently get cut off mid-sentence), and it is disingenuously juxtaposed with rambling and contradictory excuses from Nader allies about why the events of the last seven years are everybody's fault but Ralph's. This is not a fair fight.
I'm not buying what Mantel and Skrovan are selling. The things we do in life matter. Your intentions don't matter; it's what you do to the people around you that count. And if you're at all unhappy with the way President Bush has run this country over the last six years, it is certainly reasonable to hold Nader accountable.
Should you forget how you think he helped this country? No. But you should also never forget how you think he hurt this country. After seeing "An Unreasonable Man," I'm no closer to understanding Ralph Nader's legacy than I was before. I don't have the answer, and neither does Ralph. But only one of us seems to be losing any sleep over it.
Grade: 1 out of 5
