Some documentaries endow historical events with context, while others recreate them in all their messy glory, leaving viewers to organize the chaos themselves. Brett Morgen (co-director, The Kid Stays in the Picture) takes the latter tack in his multi-media reconstruction of the protests during 1968's Democratic National Convention. Using the ensuing conspiracy trial as a framing device, he assembles archival footage and animated sequences into a Rorschach-type pattern (the title refers to the eight defendants and their attorneys). Further, he turns to blistering tracks from the Beastie Boys and Rage Against the Machine to distinguish his doc from the usual nostalgia parade--sprinkled with period-appropriate selections, like Black Sabbath's "War Pigs." In the motion-capture portions, actors voice the primary players: Yippie leaders Abbie Hoffman (Hank Azaria) and Jerry Rubin (Mark Ruffalo), Black Panther Bobby Seale (Jeffrey Wright), Prosecutor Thomas Foran (an ultra-raspy Nick Nolte), and Judge Julius Hoffman (Roy Scheider, in one of his final roles). Until the tone darkens towards the end, Chicago 10 is almost too diverting for its own good. Hoffman and Rubin come across as charismatic comedians rather than committed activists, though there’s nothing funny about their furor over the conflict in Vietnam. If Morgen spends too much time on their Marx Brothers-like antics--in attempting to expose the ridiculousness of their plight, they sometimes seem more like petulant pranksters than First Amendment champions--Chicago 10's contemporary relevance makes it necessary viewing for free-speech proponents and anti-war protestors alike. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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