John Lewis: Good Trouble

This is a necessary, timely portrait of an American hero who we all should know more about. Rep. Lewis has walked the walk for justice and equality for decades. As I watched, I realized how many intersecting points exist between him and iconic organizations, individuals and moments in our nation's history. SNCC, Freedom Rides, Marching in Selma ... this man is a national treasure and I'm happy this film does justice to his remarkable story.

There are many good parts in this movie, mostly those dealing with Lewis's career in civil rights, but also scenes with his brothers and sisters talking about the effects of his activism on his family.

There is also too much filler, political figures like Pelosi and Hillary Clinton talking about Lewis's influence on them. Who cares?

If this movie had been reduced to 60 minutes, rather than the 90 of its current length, it could have been one very impressive documentary. I know it's hard to cut footage, but what this movie desperately needs is an objective editor.

This is a premier Ciivil rights leader that everyone needs to know his story.

Unfortunately, the documentary is loaded with lots of cheerleading and political colleagues, which diminish his story and the documentary overall. It feels rushed. The good - after halfway John steps inside his house and gives voice to his art, from this point on it begins to have some depth. I wished they would have interviewed his secretary or gone indepth with some of the bills he worked on instead of the fluff sections.

"John Lewis: Good Trouble" (2020 release; 96 min.) is a documentary about the life and times of US Congressman and longtime civil rights activist John Lewis. As the movie opens, Lewis addresses the camera head-on: "There are forces today that are trying to take us back in time" (referring to the blatant voter-suppression agenda of the Trump administration). We then see Lewis walking towards Capitol Hill as others comment about him. "He's effective because he's lived it", observes Alexandria Ocadio-Cortez. We then switch to Selma, Alabama, 1965, where Lewis is part of the peaceful march... At this point we are 10 min. into the movie.

Couple of comments: this is the latest documentary from writer-director Dawn Porter ("Trapped"). Here she looks back at 60 years of social justice and civil rights activism of John Lewis. The documentary covers his upbringing in rural Troy, AL all the way to his ongoing work today in the US Congress after his stunning upset victory over Julian Bond in 1986. Let's be clear: Lewis is a giant in the field of championing the voting rights of Black Americans, always reminding people to not just register to vote, but then to actually vote. For me the documentary is most remarkable for the plenty of archival footage that Porter and her team were able to unearth. There is of course some well-known footage (such as of the Selma march in 1965, still shocking now 55 years later when you see the unprovoked police brutality against the peaceful demonstrators), but also lots of rarely if not unseen footage of the young Lewis who apparently is everywhere during the years of civil rights activism. Check out the footage of the Nashville sit-in, and how the peaceful activists are treated... A good chunk of the film also looks at the 2018 election cycle, and what role systemic voter repression surely played in the Georgia governor's race (does anyone really doubt that Stacey Abrams in fact was robbed?). Along the way, Lewis keeps reminding us: "Get into trouble. Good trouble."

"John Lewis: Good Trouble" opened this weekend at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati, its second week of reopening in the COVID-19 era. My temperature was taken before I even entered the theater, and of course wearing a mask and keeping social distancing were required as well. Every other row in the theater was blocked off as well. Not that it mattered as the Friday early evening screening where I saw this at was attended by exactly 2 people, including myself. If you have any interest in the 1960s civil rights era or what is happening to this very day with voter repression left and right, I'd readily suggest you check out"John Lewis: Good Trouble", and draw your own conclusion.

I found this film to be rather slow and plodding. It would likely have helped a great deal to focus more on the civil rights activism of John Lewis in the 1960s than on the man himself. On balance, I am quite happy to have watched John Lewis: Good Trouble, but I am unlikely to recommend it to others.