“Money is a weapon,” says Buddy Roemer, a Republican candidate running in the 2012 presidential elections who was never invited to take part in the GOP debates throughout his candidacy. One main reason for Roemer, known for his opposition to the unrestricted flow of corporate money in government, to be excluded, was falling short of the minimum fundraising amounts, required by a designated date. “Sometimes [the weapon] is the check, but sometimes it’s the threat of a check,” Roemer asserts. As one of the talking-head interviewees of Carl Deal and Tia Lessin’s at-times weakly structured and unfocused documentary Citizen Koch, his words as well as his stand within the GOP pointedly summarize the central theme of the film, shaped around a fundamentally flawed election system where an outcome can be influenced and bought through colossal campaigns funded extensively by corporations.
One doesn’t have to be a political junkie or expert to grasp the filmmakers’ rightful activist ambitions here. Spotlighting Wisconsin as one of the key swing states where the power and influence of the Tea Party movement is most evident, Deal and Lessin set to explore how large amounts of anonymous corporate spending (especially following Citizens United, a 2010 Supreme Court ruling that paved the ground for unlimited financial contributions) poses a major threat to democracy. Partly focusing on Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker who faced a grassroots recall campaign in 2012 after eliminating key rights and benefits of state employees, Citizen Koch portrays Americans for Prosperity, founded by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, as the key body that stood in the way of the recall campaign. Following three lifelong Republicans who come to realize their party no longer represents their best interests after Walker’s policies take effect, the film aims to dissect the widening gap between what the GOP stands for today versus what it used to be, through these subjects’ personal experiences and struggles.
Unfortunately, among frequent cuts between footage of archival news, interviews, and endless political rallies, the filmmakers often wander off the point, unnecessarily complicating their rather straightforward stand. It is, then, no surprise that Citizen Koch is at its most effective when staying close to the stories of the state workers who candidly voice their dilemmas about the party that let them down. Moments such as hearing public school librarian Mari Jo Kabat articulate her inner moral struggle between her pro-life Republican roots versus the GOP clashing with it by cutting back on basic support for children and the elderly effectively ground the film’s agenda, making it personal and emotional. Too bad those moments are few and far between, with the film instead choosing to sample sound bites from a wide variety of sources that do little towards escalating the urgency of its message.
The directing duo Carl Deal and Tia Lessin are no strangers to political, liberal documentaries that aim to activate the people and help shape public opinion. They are long-time collaborators of Michael Moore, with credits on documentaries such as Bowling For Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, and Capitalism: A Love Story. They also made the Academy Award-nominated, post-Hurricane Katrina film Trouble The Water, which had a far superior immediacy and emotional gravitas compared to Citizen Koch. Speaking of immediacy, however, it’s worth noting that Citizen Koch was originally slated to air on PBS after its Sundance premiere in 2013. That would perhaps have been a more timely release considering the chronology of events the film covers and how much has changed in the political landscape since then. Yet PBS decided to not air the film then and, as indicated in the film’s end credits, the decision was due to David Koch being a major PBS donor. However, PBS denies this censorship accusation, and unconvincingly claims the film turned out differently than they were expecting.
Despite this delay and the film’s structural untidiness, Citizen Koch is undoubtedly worth anyone’s time, attention, and support. And to its credit, the film manages to be watchable and even entertaining throughout, with a certain upbeat flow and a dark sense of humor. If only it could have managed to bring home the anger.
