"America: Freedom To Fascism" captures America's current gloom and doom zeitgeist with plenty of controversial ideas to send any dinner party into a shouting match.
America: Freedom To Fascism (2006)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:30
Fresh:8
Rotten:22
Average Rating:4.6/10
Consensus: This documentary about the American income tax and whether citizens must pay it is more of a scattershot diatribe than a persuasive argument.
Theatrical Release:Jul 28, 2006 Limited
Box Office: $61,200
Synopsis: Paying taxes ranks pretty highly on most people's "Least Favorite Things To Do" lists, but according to filmmaker Aaron Russo, U.S. citizens aren't actually legally obliged to pay federal income... Paying taxes ranks pretty highly on most people's "Least Favorite Things To Do" lists, but according to filmmaker Aaron Russo, U.S. citizens aren't actually legally obliged to pay federal income tax at all. This is the premise on which Russo's Libertarian documentary, AMERICA: FREEDOM TO FASCISM, is based, and he speaks at length with various former IRS employees and people from financial institutions to back up his point. Russo contends that the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which allows Congress to levy and collect taxes on incomes, was never properly ratified. He then proceeds to explain how this is the case, presenting all his facts and theories in a fun, easy-to-understand manner that will be familiar to fans of Michael Moore's movies. But after setting out his stall, Russo really goes for the jugular, making claims that America is becoming a police state in which citizens are gradually having their freedoms eroded. ID cards and RFID chips are two items Russo is particularly opposed to, and he augments his warnings about these threats with deeply brooding and ominous music. However, despite his claims of doom and gloom, Russo is an optimist, bringing his movie to a crescendo as he informs his audience what they must do to counter all these threats to individual expression. AMERICA: FREEDOM TO FASCISM is an interesting and thoughtfully constructed piece that sometimes struggles to make its point heard, possibly due to the meager budget Russo was working with. [More]
Starring: Aaron Russo, Sherry Peel Jackson, Irwin Schiff, Dave Champion
Starring: Aaron Russo, Sherry Peel Jackson, Irwin Schiff, Dave Champion, Joe Banister, Katherine Albrecht
Director: Aaron Russo
Director: Aaron Russo
Screenwriter: Aaron Russo
Producer: Richard Whitley, Aaron Russo
Composer: David Benoit
Studio: Cinema Libre
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Reviews for America: Freedom To Fascism
A thought-provoking clarion call which concludes that America, instead of being by the people and for the people is, in truth, an oppressive, exploitative Big Brother where government and corporations reign supreme.
repetitive and completely self-serving, with Russo making a serious of specious arguments that are largely laughed at by his serious subjects
There is food for thought here. But Russo loses his grasp on the material once he expands his focus.
If Russo really wanted to attract an audience, he should have called this: Why You Don't Have To Pay Taxes! Now that's a title that would get people in the seats.
Russo comes off as a paranoid ranter, the movie equivalent of the street-corner pamphleteer with tinfoil in his hat to keep out the gamma rays.
Russo's brand of libertarianism is at best naive and at worst tin-foil-hat crazy.
The catch is the IRS doesn't care and will seize all your property and possibly throw you in jail if you refuse to pay.Talk about a buzzkill.
If it's true, we're all due a monumental refund; if not, Russo and his cohorts may want to start looking for write-offs.
Essentially the filmmaking equivalent of an enraged blog on the Web -- pointed and provocative, but not exactly a comprehensive source for the issues it addresses.
Even the staunchest and most forgiving of Libertarians would have to admit that this film comes up quite short.
While the film -- which Russo produced, directed, edited and wrote -- has some fascinating and compelling arguments, it quickly assumes the tone of an angry diatribe rather than a well-reasoned political discussion.
Russo feels his direction of this film is a brave, seditious deed. The audience I was surrounded by at an advance screening agreed.
This movie is so humorless that it makes you wax nostalgic for the good old days when Michael Moore was sticking it to the man.
Russo is a clearly a healthy minded skeptic who tries to get both sides of the story.
Filmmaking lapses aside, this is an impassioned and generally persuasive film that rings all too eerily true.
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