American Anarchist

William Powell wrote the Anarchist Cookbook when he was 19, naive, and angry at the government for their violent oppression of the 60s counter-culture movements. He wanted to be a published author and thought writing a manual of techniques to resist oppression would find an audience. He didn't realize what kind of audience it would eventually find, nor that his book would continuously come back to haunt him for the rest of his life.

Powell, age 65 in the film tells of domestication into family life and his life-long passion for helping teach children with learning disabilities, while he optimistically hoped that his first book would quietly die the death of a passing fad. Unfortunately, that was not the case, which Charlie Siskel tries to drive home repeatedly to the point of seemingly bullying Powell in a sanctimonious, holier-than-thou exposition as he lists case after case of violent incidents where the cookbook was involved.

I found this film scary and saddening because it is a salient example of how a naive mistake made during a person's youth can indefinitely and permanently damage their life on an ongoing basis. The low score is mainly the fault of the filmmakers who did not seem to have a clear idea of what to do and hence resorted to harping on different ways of shaming a man for actions that he has not engaged in, endorsed, or even condoned for almost 50 years.