''Steal This Movie!'' is a 2000 American biographical film directed by Robert Greenwald and written by Bruce Graham, based on the 1976 book '' To America with Love: Letters From the Underground'' by Anita and Abbie Hoffman and 1992 book '' Abbie Hoffman: American Rebel'' by

Marty Jezer Marty Jezer (November 21, 1940 – June 11, 2005) was a well-known activist and author. Born Martin Jezer and raised in the Bronx, he earned a history degree from Lafayette College. He was a co-founding member of the Working Group on Electoral ...

. The film follows 1960s radical figure Abbie Hoffman, and stars

Vincent D'Onofrio Vincent Philip D'Onofrio (; born June 30, 1959) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is known for his supporting and leading roles in both film and television. He has been nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award. His roles include Private Leonar ...

and

Janeane Garofalo Janeane Marie Garofalo ( ; born September 28, 1964) is an American comedian, actress, and former co-host on the now-defunct Air America Radio's ''The Majority Report''. Garofalo began her career as a stand-up comedian and became a cast member on ...

, with

Jeanne Tripplehorn Jeanne Marie Tripplehorn (born June 10, 1963) is an American actress. She began her career on stage, acting in several plays throughout the early 1990s, including Anton Chekhov's '' Three Sisters'' on Broadway. Her film career began with the ro ...

and

Kevin Pollak Kevin Elliot Pollak (born October 30, 1957) is an American actor, comedian, impressionist and podcast host. He has appeared in over 80 films; his roles include Sam Weinberg in Rob Reiner's legal film ''A Few Good Men'', Jacob Goldman in '' Grump ...

. The film follows Hoffman's (D'Onofrio) relationship with his second wife Anita (Garofalo) and their "awakening" and subsequent conversion to an activist life. The title of the film is a play on Hoffman's 1971

counter-culture A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...

guidebook titled ''

Steal This Book ''Steal This Book'' is a book written by Abbie Hoffman. Written in 1970 and published in 1971, the book exemplified the counterculture of the sixties. The book sold more than a quarter of a million copies between April and November 1971. The numb ...

''. ''Steal This Movie!'' premiered at the 2000

Santa Barbara Film Festival The Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF) is an eleven-day film festival held in Santa Barbara, California since 1986. The festival boasts screenings of over 200 feature films and shorts from different countries and regions. SBIFF al ...

, and also showed at the South by Southwest Film Festival.

Cast

Reception

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 51% based on 43 reviews, and an average rating of 4.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "D'Onofrio's performance fails to do justice to Hoffman, and the depiction of the 60s also rings false." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 36 out of 100, based on 26 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Some criticism of the film is that it is

hagiographic A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies might ...

of Abbie Hoffman and fails to give proper credit to other activists of the era like

Paul Krassner Paul Krassner (April 9, 1932 – July 21, 2019) was an American author, journalist, and comedian. He was the founder, editor, and a frequent contributor to the freethought magazine ''The Realist'', first published in 1958. Krassner became a key ...

, who co-founded the

Yippies The Youth International Party (YIP), whose members were commonly called Yippies, was an American youth-oriented radical and countercultural revolutionary offshoot of the free speech and anti-war movements of the late 1960s. It was founded on D ...

with Hoffman and his wife. Other critics disliked the film's editing, which frequently relied upon the use of documentary footage, voiceovers, and subtitles to help advance the plot. However, nearly all film reviewers agreed that the strong acting performance of

as Hoffman overcame the film's otherwise minor flaws and modest budget. In September 2000, america Hoffman, son of Abbie and Anita, filed suit against

Lions Gate Films Lionsgate Films (formerly known as Cinépix Film Properties) is an American film production and film distribution studio, headquartered in Santa Monica and founded in Canada, and is the flagship division of Lionsgate Entertainment. It is the lar ...

in an attempt to block further distribution of the film, accusing the film-makers of invasion of privacy and presenting an "unauthorized, false and uncomplimentary portrayal" of him as a child. In the suit, america protested his portrayal in the film as "a wimpy, quiet, sulking and effeminate 'mama's boy,'" and accused film-makers of implying america "may be a homosexual." Hoffman later dropped the suit and retracted his claims against the film-makers, stating "I understand that the filmmaker's characterization of me and my relationship to my father was made in good faith and with honorable intentions." Wednesday, 28 December 2016

References

External links

* * * {{Robert Greenwald 2000 films American biographical films Films based on biographies Films shot in Toronto Films directed by Robert Greenwald Films about activists Films about the Chicago Seven Cultural depictions of Abbie Hoffman 2000s English-language films 2000s American films

Cast

Reception

See also

References

External links