Survival

You may well shed a tear or two, for other but not wholly unrelated reasons, over A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict, which concerns the ways in which the downtrodden masses have, through coordinated noncooperation, harried their oppressors, toppled tyrants, secured denied rights. Directed by Steve York, the film itself (three hours split over two nights) extracts six episodes -- Gandhi against the British, the American civil rights movement, Danish resistance to the Nazi occupation, the fall of apartheid, the Gdansk shipyard strike, the overthrow of Pinochet -- from a more comprehensive ”companion book“ of the same name, and is smartly made but nothing fancy; its effect is all in the subject itself. The accounts are streamlined and simplified -- none of these movements were without (sometimes violent) internal dissension, largely unreported here -- but do stir the blood. The archival footage is splendid; Ben Kingsley, who isn‘t Gandhi but played him in the movies, narrates well.

Finally, I cannot refrain from warning you against -- or alerting you to, depending on your taste for ironic amusement -- Hendrix, a biopic of the funky psychedelic rock god. Some pains have been taken to replicate the clothes he wore and the overall choreography of his appearances at Monterey and Woodstock, though it might have been better if newcomer Wood Harris looked like he had the slightest idea of how to play the guitar, and if the soundtrack had included some of Jimi’s own songs -- lacking permission from the estate, it‘s all covers, ”Hey Joe“ and ”Wild Thing“ and ”The Star-Spangled Banner,“ badly reproduced. Lacking ”Purple Haze“ or ”Voodoo Child,“ the subject’s authentic star power or a script that makes something substantial out of his life‘s real themes, the film is just big hair and groovy threads and bump and grind. There are some naked girls, though.

Executive producer and former concert promoter Ron Terry is the project’s official Friend of Jimi, and his younger self is of course represented here, hipping Hendrix to FM radio and saving his career. Vivica A. Fox and Dorian Harewood briefly appear, I would hope to their chagrin. Only Billy Zane, as an evil business manager, carries any weight; he‘s a caricature for sure, but as solid a cartoon as Wood’s earnest Jimi is tracing-paper thin. This is the worst film of its kind I have ever seen, and I have seen The Benny Goodman Story. People, please: no more biopics. No more Survivors. It‘s time to let reality be.