Product Description

Studio: Lions Gate Home Ent. Release Date: 05/22/2007

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #55557 in DVD
• Brand: Lions Gate
• Released on: 2001-01-23
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 107 minutes

Amazon.com
Vincent D'Onofrio is one of our most aggressively commanding actors, and he makes a good choice to impersonate Yippie activist Abbie Hoffman. All loping, shambly charm and occasional frenzied explosiveness, D'Onofrio's Hoffman is close enough to the real thing that, just like the Yippies themselves, he appears magnetic and forceful to the already converted, but a fraudulent, egomaniacal hambone to everyone else. (Even those unimpressed by D'Onofrio's indulgences can only admire the simmering commitment Janeane Garofalo brings to the role of his wife Anita.) Which is more than you can say for Robert Greenwald's unfocused hagiography, which should manage to pull off the rare feat of displeasing anyone no matter what their opinions of Hoffman. Racing through the years with the greatest-hits flippancy toward a life unfortunately all too familiar from movie bios (see Abbie try to levitate the Pentagon! Nominate a pig for President! Battle loneliness and depression while on the run from the cops!), Steal this Movie plays more like a lecture than a happening. Even the most obvious points are hammered home with the type of bone-headed didacticism that does more to grate on an audience than win it over. Lest we miss a thing, there are occasional voice-overs by a badly impersonated Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover to explain exactly what's going on. The film plays with all manner of actual footage and FBI surveillance photography, but the mix of styles is more chaos than anarchy; the boxy, amateurish camera work drains all possible giddiness from even the most rapturously absurd of Hoffman's pranks. Straining with clumsy urgency to capture the tenor of its subject, Steal This Movie gets the self-righteousness down but misses out on the passion, and the liberating spark of play. --Bruce Reid

From The New Yorker
The life and ravings of the radical provocateur Abbie Hoffman, who probably needs an introduction as far as younger moviegoers are concerned. Played with a kind of driven charm by Vincent D'Onofrio, Hoffman progresses from clean-cut youth to loping yeti, and from a merrily stoned jester to a bundle of prickly nerves. The film is good on his inbuilt urge to protest: even on the run from the Feds, hiding quietly under an assumed name, the guy can't help joining an environmental pressure group and saving his local river. But the story loses its grip. The director, Robert Greenwald, seems awed rather than inspired by the impishness of his hero, and there are moments when Bruce Graham's script seems like a Cliff's Notes version of the sixties. We get plenty on Abbie's rough, loving marriage to Anita (Janeane Garofalo), but the sexual sprees of their generation are tidied away in a corner of the film. You wonder whether the man himself would have welcomed an homage so dangerously low on fun. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Good biography of a great man
`Steal This Movie' is a well-thought, well-written well-acted, well-made dramatization of the life of left-wing activist Abbie Hoffman, probably the most famous of the Chicago Seven. (The title is a play on the title of Hoffman's autobiography, `Steal This Book', though it certainly doesn't have the poignancy of that title.) `Steal This Movie' made some bold casting choices. The lead role was given to Vincent D'Onofrio: not an obvious choice, because Vincent looks very little like Abbie, which caused many die-hard history aficionados to bash the decision. However, Vincent fills the role wonderful, brilliantly, expressing all the conflicting sides of Hoffman's personality, his sense of humor, his dead seriousness, strict political consciousness, bi-polar disorder, having to live in hiding and away from his wife and son. He makes the character come alive much more than someone else could have by simply looking and talking like him. Abbie's wife Anita is played wonderfully by SNL's Janeane Garofalo, accomplished comedian but not so as a dramatic actress.

Though it doesn't have that much cinematic value by its own right, `Steal This Movie' does a fantastic job of getting through both the spirit of the time and the greatness and difficulties of Hoffman's activities and his character - a great and fascinating person whose impact has long been overlooked. It's also a wonderful document of an important period that is practically ignored (relatively, of course). For those interested in the late 60s, in the hippie movements, Black Panthers and other left wing political movements of the time, and of course in Hoffman himself - it's invaluable, on top of being both touching and entertaining. A good watch.

D'Onofrio is brilliant, the script is inspiring
Bruce Graham, the writer of the screenplay, was not happy with the final outcome of this film. He is a playwriting teacher of mine at Drexel University, and although the man is amazing, he couldn't be more wrong about "Steal This Movie." He might not have been happy with D'Onofrio as Abbie Hoffman, but I was thrilled by it.

This is a must-see for Vince D'Onofrio fans, and for those of us looking for a bit of inspiration to let our voices be heard against today's war. Vincent D'Onofrio is one of the greatest character actors I have ever seen, and I love the choices he makes for his films. Brilliant every time.

inspiring
ack,what a great film! the acting is superb, and the screenplay is great - i found myself looking for a pen to write down tons of the lines that i found especially inspiring.

i disagree with the other reviewers - the editing style is just that - stylish, not sloppy. in certain scenes, the camera wobbles a little, but i think that this gives the film an authentic feel to it - i felt like i was actually there, as a part of the riot, and those particular scenes had the feel of primary-source footage.

the movie was not only entertaining, but inspiring - where have all our idealistic leaders gone to? the film left me asking if the government had effectively done away with all of them.

perhaps this film is just a piece of propaganda. i don't know. but if so, i certainly fell for it! and i now officially LOVE vincent d'onofrio!