Type: Documentary
Distributor: Red Envelope Entertainment
Release Date: January 31, 2007
Rating: NR
Running Time: 155 Minutes
Starring: Ralph Nader, Jay Acton, Theresa Amato, Pat Buchanan, Peter Camejo
Directed by: Henriette Mantel, Stephen Skrovan
REVIEW SUMMARY
Early in the documentary “An Unreasonable Man,” it is noted that Ralph Nader is more likely to be remembered for his 2000 presidential campaign than for the decades of advocacy that preceded it. And the movie, an admiring but hardly uncritical portrait of Mr. Nader, confirms this suspicion by devoting nearly half of its more than two-hour running time to the 2000 election and its aftermath. That event seems at once irrelevant and urgent, lost in the mists of pre-9/11 history and painfully topical. Certainly the passage of time has not cooled tempers or settled arguments. And so, much of the second half of “An Unreasonable Man,” directed by Steve Skrovan and Henriette Mantel (a former associate of Mr. Nader, she is also interviewed on camera), consists of talking heads talking past one another. — A. O. Scott, The New York Times