January 6th

The only thing more disturbing than the disgraceful behavior of the bigots and criminals who shamed our country on that day is the willful ignorance, denial and absurdity of those who still insist there's nothing to see here.

We are truly living in bizarre times when this amount of direct, firsthand evidence is STILL not enough for those who wish to believe in an alternative reality. Watching this footage, one can only marvel at the mental gymnastics and cognitive dissonance required to twist this into "fake news" or "it's Pelosis fault". In decades to come our descendants will be appalled. One can only hope they at least find some wry humor in the ridiculousness of self-proclaimed "patriots" violently attacking the US Capitol.

Filmmakers were on the ground with the rioting mob that day risking their own life and safety to document history. As a result we watch up close the Capitol Police and the DC Police being beaten and pushed and overwhelmingly outnumbered for hours to protect the seat of US government and its elected members (knowing that if they used their weapons it would be catastrophic to hundreds). Their brave, selfless, savvy and exhausting performance to do their jobs against all odds is brilliantly captured in this film. They are every-day men and women who became American heroes who saved lives and protected the foundation of our democracy. We see first hand the human and institutional damage caused by the angry mob (both inside and outside of the US Capitol) and its intent to stop the democratic Constitutional process of the peaceful transfer of power of a US Presidency. The filmmakers continually use a model of the Capitol, as well as a time stamp, to show the viewer the different entries that were breached and how close the mob was to the elected officials throughout the day. One comes away with even more dismay at how this could go on for hours, 3.5 miles from the Pentagon and.15 blocks from White House, without any intervention and assistance from the President and the military.

Seriously. It's the most cliche group of people (I'd bet the farm on calling them election deniers). I'd also wager they made it past highschool but are now holding a PhD in political science. You know the people I'm talking about. They probably have a shirt that says "We the people" but don't know the lines that follow that. You know, the ones who will get all up in arms about the 2nd amendment, but couldn't tell you what the 9th amendment is. I hope one of them reads this review and takes a good long look in the mirror before sitting down to watch this movie.

Anyway. This is an interesting movie about an infamous day. It's definitely worth the watch.

This is an excellent documentary of what happened on January 6th, the most shameful day in American history! As I watch, I can feel my anger rising, again. I am still outraged that my fellow Americans allowed themselves to fall for all the lies Trump, and FOX NEWS, had been spewing for over 3 years. And then, they actually took arms and attacked our Capitol Building at Trump's bidding! MY Capital Building! MY country!

As I hear them yelling "treason" I wonder if they even realize that THEY were committing treason at that very moment! I am going to watch this video each year to remind myself just how close we came to losing our country to Donald Trump, the worst president to ever hold the office.

May God continue to bless America, and save us from Trump, and his followers.

It's unfortunate that there are still people that deny that January 6th has the meaning that most normal, everyday Americans feel it has. It was an attack on our democracy from a hoard of people that thought where we all live is only THEIR country. It's not, nor will it ever be.

The documentary is made by the same filmmakers that brought us "9/11." The two French documentarians that are the only ones who recorded the first plane that went into the World Trade Center. They continued filming that day at the risk of their own lives and produced a film record that is still played on 9/11 anniversaries because it is so powerful. This film is as powerful. I don't believe they were there on January 6th to film anything, but the pieces of footage they've assembled into a coherent narrative is the only one I've seen that shows the SCOPE of what happened. There were many shots and clips that I had never seen, and I thought I'd seen them all. In addition, there were several shots that showed the actual SIZE of the crowd of rioters, and I no longer have any doubt that the people that were the subjects of the attack suffer from PTSD to this day. It frightened me a little on a TV screen. I can't even begin to imagine what it would have been like to have actually been in the middle of it.

I agree with other reviewers that say this should be shown in schools. It is educational and never boring. I would imagine students would find this film riveting.

People calling this biased or leftist or whatever other distractions they try to smarm into readers of their reviews are trying to make people turn away from this because it makes anyone that supports it look awfully bad.

The thing that struck me most were the continued chants of "USA! USA! USA!" while they stormed the seat of our government, as if to say that what they were doing was somehow a representation of the USA. It was only that representation to people who are dissatisfied with their government, or frankly, their own lives, and don't know how to express themselves like a citizen in a society. We STILL have a democracy despite their crass and loathsome behavior, and we don't express dissatisfaction with the government by attacking it. We vote. And they knew that before they did what they did. The insurrectionists that are still in jail were not even mentioned in this piece. And that is appropriate -- they, after all, knew what they signed up for.

A very solid 10 for me.