In the case of far-right ear-flicking such as this fiction-laced retelling of the Hunter Biden laptop nothingburger, a writeup in a semi-reputable publication like the Guardian gives hyperventilating Breitbart commenters all the ammo they need to prove that the libs have been thoroughly and irrefutably triggered. The truth is that the latest feature-length output from the conservative peanut gallery poses little threat to the viewing public, its foamy-mouthed partisanship speaking only to those already simpatico to its theories and alienating the saner majority within its opening minutes. It doesn’t deserve time or mental energy from right-thinking citizens, but if the past decade of American politics has taught us anything, it’s that ignoring extremism does not make it go away.
And so an intrepid critic has no choice but to tromp into the dank bog of paranoia and conspiracy theorizing that is the sophomore directorial effort from Robert Davi. (His only other credit being 2007’s forgotten The Dukes, he’s perhaps most fondly remembered as the sleazy club owner in Showgirls who muses to Elizabeth Berkley, “Must be weird not having anybody cum on you.”) In its hermetically sealed ideology, under which all of the favored Trumpian talking points about alleged corruption in the Biden administration can’t be countered with the real-world examples of his own misdeeds, the film offers fringe lunatics a safe space. “This is not a true story,” says a Secret Service agent with a smirk, moments after the currently sitting president takes a deep whiff of her hair. “Except for all the facts.” To ensure that the truth-to-power self-aggrandizement comes across loud and clear, these words also appear onscreen.
The film is much more secure in the vehemency of its anger than the hows or whys, starting with a news montage of flaming violence during Black Lives Matter protests that huffs and puffs on a racist dogwhistle. This has nothing to do with the proposed Biden crime syndicate, but like so many of the pushed buttons, serves to stoke the embers of rage in a presumed viewer all too excited to spend two hours fuming in like-minded company. That mentality of paradoxically paired grievance and gloating is the only way to explain the weirder flourishes, all of which suggest someone laughing a little too hard in an effort to appear not-mad.
That none of this actually makes any sense isn’t much of a problem; modern rightwing thought has relied on vibes over threads of logic for years now, assured of its own effectiveness so long as the correct fears and resentments have been exploited.
Davi wants to take a victory lap without the victory, so his only recourse is to build a tiny, isolated universe in which he and his cohort get to play winner. The creation of an alternate reality makes for a troubling yet apt sendoff, representative of a toxic strain of Q-adjacent conservatism that relies upon casting its subscribers as hero and star in an epic drama only they can see. “Maybe, in the end, the truth itself became the fairytale,” Grace says through the fourth wall. Whatever that means, sure, fine – but it does suggest the corollary that for those sympathetic to this movie’s tinfoil-hatted mumbo-jumbo, fairytales have taken the place of truth.
Laurence Fox and Gina Carano star in an unhinged low-budget drama based less on fact and more on conspiracy theory
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