May 23, 2009: Recount
Recount is an HBO made-for-cable movie from 2008, which rehashes the controversy around the voting and recounts in Florida in the 2000 US presidential election, in which a US Supreme Court decision awarded the presidency to George W. Bush over Al Gore. Kevin Spacey, Denis Leary, Laura Dern, Tom Wilkinson, John Hurt and Bob Balaban appear in major roles.
This is clearly a passionate effort by people who feel that the Democrats were unjustly shut down as part of the legal process following the election. The tone of the movie is in the classic HBO made-for-cable movie tradition, but unfortunately veers a bit too much towards the cartoonish broad brush in the vein of The Late Shift, an HBO film from 1996 which adapted a book into a very silly chronicling of the events surrounding the awarding of NBC’s The Tonight Show to Jay Leno in 1992, resulting in David Letterman’s jump to CBS. I slept through a bit of Recount, but that’s no reflection on the movie – I had started late, and skipped back to re-watch what I had missed.
What this movie makes me want to do is look up the major players and get the real background on these events, which are mostly glossed over in the movie. Recount was neat to watch, but what’s the point? How much did I learn? A book about this would be far more useful.
Sometimes it’s better to read books.
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