"2016: Obama's America" Review

Title: 2016: Obama's America  Director: Dinesh D'Souza, John Sullivan  Studio: Rocky Mountain Pictures  Genre(s): Documentary  Rated: PG (For thematic elements, brief language and smoking images)

Though this may sound like a strange way to start a review like this, I have to start by apologizing to Michael Moore about how I brushed off his “Fahrenheit 9/11” film as being unimportant at the time. Oh, don't get me wrong, the movies still a piece of crap, but I didn't realize that he was starting a trend of openly questioning the people we would be voting for by putting their ideals in front of a camera. Because of that movie we now have movies like “2016: Obama's America,” which seems to have been inspired by the tension that made “Fahrenheit 9/11” so uncomfortable to watch. If Moore ends up seeing this movie, hopefully he'll realize that sometimes the thing that hurts the most is the truth.

Yes, this film is biased in a conservative slant. That will always be a mark against this film if someone tries to bring this up in a debate. But hey, at least the film deals with things it can actually prove instead of going after wild conspiracy theories like whether or not President Barack Obama was born in the United States or not (for the record, the film claims he's born in Honolulu and leaves it at that). Our host is Dinesh D'Souza, an immigrant who came to America and managed to become a strong voice in the conservative media. He mentions early on that he wanted to make this film because he had some serious concerns about where President Obama stood on American values.

He's concerned about where Obama's lack of budget planning, lowering of nuclear weapons and distribution of wealth is going to take the country. He looks through Obama's own book to see if he can discover what Obama's vision of America could be. Again, this movie has a conservative slant, but at least it's packaging material that is already out there in a unique way. To prove that he's not just pulling things out of thin air, he even takes records of Obama himself to prove that Obama's vision for America is in sharp contrast with the ideas America was founded on in the first place. Things like returning a bust of Winston Churchill and raising taxes but not paying off the national debt are odd choices for a president to make.

Dinesh's observation of Obama is that he is trying to create a socialist society where the government makes choices for the people and makes sure everyone is on equal ground financially. Whether that sounds like a good idea to you or not I'll let you decide. Personally, if I earn a little extra money for myself I feel I deserve to keep that money then give it to someone who is on welfare. Never mind. This review is difficult to write because you have to walk a fine line between being objective and not letting politics get in the way of things. In my mind “2016: Obama's America” is an expertly crafted letter of concern from one American to another.

Chances are it won't sway anyone who isn't already decided about the election. Most of the news in this film isn't anything I haven't heard before. The scariest part of the movie for me is when Obama tells the Russian president that he'll take care of something during his second term because “[he] won't have to worry about being reelected then.” What does he promise to do? We can't hear the Russian president, so I'm not sure, but I assume it's something that wouldn't be popular with the American people. If there's one solid lesson one can take from “2016: Obama's America” is that no one man should be given too much power over America and democracy must prevail. Regardless of the outcome of the upcoming election I think people would do well to remember this.