Four Hours at the Capitol (2021)

(On Cable TV, October 2021) I really did not enjoy Four Hours at the Capitol very much, but this has more to do with the subject matter than the way the film is put together. January 6, 2021, was a blight on the history of the United States: The executive branch of the American government deliberately attacking the legislative branch by inciting a mob of rioters to interrupt its vote-counting process. I watched most of it live on TV, aghast at the banana-republic antics taking place south of the border. Surely this will change things, I foolishly thought. But not really. Four Hours at the Capitol uses footage and interviews to go through those four hours once again, giving far too much time to the domestic terrorists in a misguided attempt to either strike a false balance between conspiracist nutjobs and everyone else, or to have them explain themselves. There isn’t all that much new material here for those who spent the day watching news channels—although the tunnel episode is harrowingly depicted. Some aspects seem elided, such as the late response of other police forces and their cleanup of the Capitol. It almost goes without saying that the entire leading-up to the events of the day is missing in favour of focusing on those four hours. Worse: Many of the terrorists interviewed for the film seem clueless about the true nature of their actions or their all-encompassing delusion at the altar of a hollow leader—there’s some satisfaction in seeing the consequences of their actions catch up with them, but it’s clear that there’s no rational discourse coming from them. Put together in a few months by director Jamie Roberts, Four Hours at the Capitol amounts to a first draft documentary—concerned about presenting a summary of events, but short on context and inevitably devoid of perspective. Frankly, it’s irresponsible to let crazy conspiracist statements go by without at least some refutation: if the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that “both sides” rhetoric is corrosive by itself. But, of course, for those of us watching on the other side of the US border, what we have learned is that for Americans, there is no offence so beyond the pale, no transgression so unacceptable as to change things. Any nation that goes through Bush v. Gore, 9/11, Abu Ghraib, Sandy Hooks or 750,000 COVID excess deaths without rethinking its core values is, by definition, effectively beyond help. Something else, much worse, will come up. Let’s hope we’re not in the downwind fallout.