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Customer Reviews of The U.S. vs. John Lennon

Give Peace a Chance
The U.S. vs. John Lennon chronicles the peace activist period of the pop star's life, and a fine chronicle it is. The Nixon administration, once they decided Lennon was a threat, decided to boot him out of the country, and this documentary examines the legal struggle as well as trying to answer the question of why Lennon was an "enemy of the state." Using footage from interviews, press conferences, concerts, home movies, and news reports combined with interviews with key figures like Noam Chomsky, Angela Davis, G Gordon Liddy, Geraldo Rivera, and Gore Vidal, they put together a well-reasoned assessment of Lennon's activities and the mood of the nation, administration and the world at the time. <
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>Lennon traded in his mop-top pop image for a more gritty and important role as a songwriter with a message, and that message was Peace. As he so simply put it, "Peace has never been given a chance." And the message "Give Peace a Chance" resonates so loudly that its simplicity is its power. He believed in it and he lived it. With so many people looking up to him, he used his celebrity to speak to this crucial message. <
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>The film shows footage from the famous Bed-Ins, where Lennon and Ono stayed in bed in protest. The biggest criticism anyone can raise to those week-long events is that they are Utopian and what's wrong with that? What did it hurt to have photos in every major newspaper and on the nightly news showing Lennon and Ono in bed, capturing in every shot a homemade sign with the word Peace prominent. <
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>The message of the movie wasn't that Lennon had a squabble with the U.S. Government. The true message was that the most powerful nation on earth, with the most powerful military in history, is afraid of a simple word. The message is that Peace can't be given a chance - it must be stopped, it must be crushed, it must be scorned and derided, it must be disempowered, disemboweled, and dismembered. Peace doesn't have a friendly relationship with profit, so peace must lose. John Lennon spoke out and used his celebrity to challenge Nixon and for it he was harassed, his privacy was invaded, and his right to live in the U.S. nearly revoked. <
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>Sure the movie glossed over his funding of the Black Panthers and didn't spend a lot of time exploring his friendships with other activists, but this was a chronicle, not an expose. <
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>It brought forward Lennon's message of peace and made me consider it again. And it told the story of Lennon's final decade from a new perspective. It was well-made, and worked on all levels. <
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> - CV Rick

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All good children go to heaven
It turned out great. I was afraid it was going to be a rehash of the "Imagine" movie. This is a film that stands on its own two legs. I could not find it playing anywhere last September when it was released to theatres. So its been a long wait and worth it to at last see this movie. I recall many of these events transpiring back in the days of rage and I can see why the film hinted at todays similar problems. Similar? Nay! Mirror image I should say--right down to the nosense the government now gives us. Same words said with the same intent. (This is why "The Decider" is mentioned later in the film. Some Amazon reviewers missed the irony I think.) <
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>John was unique and he brought his political views to the public eye with an artistic flare. This is an inspiring documentary and worthy of the price. A trip down memory lane for us baby-boomers and a bitchin' history lesson for the young people of today.

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somewhat misleading title
This is generally a good documentary, but it's not without its problems. For one thing, the film is far better as a narrative about Lennon's involvement in the peace movement than as a narrative about Lennon's battles with the FBI and INS; it is these battles from which the movie draws its title, but only about the last half-hour of the movie is focused on this segment of Lennon's life. There's nothing wrong with that, but it does make the title more than a bit misleading. A much better title for the film would have been "Give Peace A Chance." <
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>I've got one other major complaint, and it may seem like a picky one, but here goes anyways. Gore Vidal is interviewed several times, and at one point toward the end of the film he's talking about John Lennon, and says, "He represented life, which is admirable. And Mr. Nixon -- and Mr. Bush -- represent death. And that is a bad thing." Gosh, you think? Now, I'm no fan of George W. Bush, either; he's clearly one of the worst things to ever happen to this country, politically speaking. But what does that have to do with THIS movie? It's even worse, because Vidal is looking directly at the camera while saying the final line. This could not possibly have been more phony, more pretentious, more high-minded, or more grating; and just because I happen to agree with the sentiment does not mean that it ought to have been there in the first place. It shouldn't have. It's an incredibly false note in an otherwise impeccable production. <
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>That aside, though, this is a very good movie. Lennon led an important life, and a serious look at this side of it was probably overdue. The DVD has almost an hour's worth of deleted scenes, all of which are worth seeing.