Bush Family Fortunes: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy (2004)

Greg Palast has been following the Bush family around for years as an investigative reporter for the BBC. This is some of the information he has found, as recorded in his book "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy".

Director:

Steven Grandison

Writers:

Greg Palast (book), Greg Palast (US production written by)

Stars:

Clayton Roberts, Greg Palast, Jim Hightower

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Clayton Roberts	...	Himself - Director of Elections, Florida
Greg Palast	...	Himself
Jim Hightower	...	Himself - Former Agriculture Commissioner
Bill White	...	Himself - Former Fighter Pilot
Terry Johnson	...	Himself - Bush's College Room-mate
Robert Dieter	...	Himself - Bush's College Room-mate
Bob Hope	...	Himself (archive footage)
George W. Bush	...	Himself (archive footage)
George Bush	...	Himself (archive footage)
Bill Burkett	...	Himself - Retired Lt. Col., Texas Air Guard
Karen Hughes	...	Herself (archive footage)
Jeb Bush	...	Himself (archive footage)
Katherine Harris	...	Herself (archive footage)
Al Gore	...	Himself (archive footage)
Willie Steen	...	Himself - Florida Voter

Storyline

Greg Palast has been following the Bush family around for years as an investigative reporter for the BBC. This is some of the information he has found, as recorded in his book "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy".

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Plot Keywords:

plutocracy | character name in title | 

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Genres:

Documentary

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

28 September 2004 (USA)

Also Known As:

Bush Family Fortunes

Company Credits

Production Co:

Disinformation Company

Technical Specs

Color:

Color Black and White

User Reviews

Slanted and boring, frankly

As an investigative reporter for the BBC and Guardian newspapers, Greg Palast has been following the Bush family around for several years and turned some of his findings into a book called "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy", which led to this fairly poorly put-together documentary.

Essentially split into two parts, the first portion focuses on George W. Bush's 2000 election, and the second centers on the Bush family's role in the oil business and how that is internationally relevant, particularly in regard to the war in Iraq. While I consider myself to be about as liberal as they come in terms of my own politics, I am just as annoyed with documentaries that have too much liberal slant in them as I am with those that have a conservative agenda. Sometimes, a politically motivated documentary can be successful in presenting facts and backing up their thesis while making no bones about the fact that they feel one way or another. ("Outfoxed" comes to mind) Unfortunately, it seems to be the more independent and lower budget documentaries that choose not to hide their bias, and "Bush Family Fortunes" is one of them. Freeze-framing someone so they look particularly insidious, repeatedly snidely calling Bush Sr. "Daddy" (yes, I know that W did that too, but still) and other elements made me roll my eyes a few times.

Unfortunate, because while I didn't really learn anything new in this documentary (other than a couple of things regarding the Florida election process in 2000, most of the material was covered by Michael Moore in "Fahrenheit 911, to a greater effect) there were definitely some relevant issues that were brought up. Employing tactics like having Greg Palast walk around in what looks like a detective's getup, walking down a street with smoke rising around him, and inserting Moby songs in a really awkward manner is unfortunately just not going to bring people in to see it. "Bush Family Fortunes" would have been better served as a television documentary, if Palast could have kept the sneering and the slant out of it. Interesting material, but the presentation is poor. This liberal gives this documentary a 4/10 --Shel