Silver City

Silver City is rated R for language, but audiences are likely to be dozing comfortably in their stadium seats before anything offensive reaches their ears | Andrew Coffin

What a snooze! Silver City is the first narrative entry—describing it as fictional wouldn't really distinguish it from the "documentaries" that preceded it—in the slate of anti-Bush propaganda hitting theaters in the run-up to November's election. And it proves that bad things happen when a capable filmmaker lets his ideological agenda get the better of him.

John Sayles is a resolutely independent writer/director known for films dealing with unusual characters—often with subtlety and compassion. Well, he's finally met his match, encountering a character type he doesn't know how (or doesn't want) to make human: that despicable creature, the conservative.

Silver City is rated R for language, but audiences are likely to be dozing comfortably in their stadium seats before anything offensive reaches their ears.