Year One: A Political Odyssey (2022) User Reviews

Insightful documentary on Biden's first 14 months

[paul-allaer · 7/10 · 21 October 2022]

As "Year One: A Political Odyssey" (2022 release; 85 min) opens, it is "January 20, 2021" and Biden is sworn in while Trump, disgraced and the Biggest Loser ever, breaks with 245 years of precedents and refuses to attend. Soon thereafter Biden faces the on-going COVID pandemic (comments one official: "In December we asked what is the plan. There was no plan"). At this point we are less than 10 minutes into the movie.

Couple of comments; this is the latest documentary from well respected director John Maggio {"The Perfect Weapon"). He is given broad access to many of the top people in the Biden administration. While the movie title refers to Year One, it covers in fact the initial 14 months of the Biden presidency (through late March of 2022), which can be very broadly summed up in 3 challenges: COVID, Afghanistan, and Russia. The debacle that was the withdrawal from Afghanistan demonstrates that even competent people can make very bad and unexpected miscalculations. When viewing a documentary like this, it isn't always easy to distinguish between the politics you agree or disagree with and whether the documentary is in fact any good. Please don't be fooled by the overall terrible rating of this movie here on IMDb (3.4 as of today), which without a doubt are the results of ratings given by trolls (Russian and/or Trumpist trolls, if they can be distinguished) who haven't seen the documentary.

"Year One: A Political Odyssey" premiered on HBO and HBO Max last night (I caught it on HBO Max). If you have an interest in (geo)politics or are simply in the mood for a decent documentary, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.

Laughable piece of propaganda

[pinico · 1/10 · 22 October 2022]

The people of the administration talking wonders about a failed administration. The typical blame of all the problems to the other party and declare openly half of the country as the enemy.

They were very clever to hide all the problems of the administration such as highest inflation in decades, raising high prices and war against oil producers, more deaths of covid in 2021 than the year's pandemic, humanitarian crisis at the border and even hide the facts about the humiliation withdrawal in Afghanistan that killed American soldiers and left millions of weaponry to the taliban.

Orwell propaganda worthy of communist regime.

What is there to celebrate?

[dobly58 · 1/10 · 20 October 2022]

From the cast of characters that brought you a disaster in Afghanistan, inflation from day one of the Presidency, empty shelves, fingers in the war in Ukraine, unfettered illegal immigration, fentynal, eye-watering crime levels, laptops, Russia dossiers, criminal deals, money laundering for the Big Guy, and smoking guns aplenty. Well that's just a brief summary of the plot glossed over with quirky voxpops of life behind the press briefing room. Thankfully the CNN crew that pushed all the "reliable sources" are almost gone, and so will half the staffers after November. While the West ponders nuclear war, Biden and his absentee VP ponder more boosters for your arm, LGBTQ+ bumper stickers, sex manuals for kids, the weather and keeping the borders open, Russia and China plot their next move facing zero resistance from grandad Joe. Year One: A Political Comedy. (If only).

Excellent

[choateart · 10/10 · 23 October 2022]

Republicans will give this a 1 rating without even watching beyond the first 15 seconds because it opens with a voice over of Jake Tapper referring to Trump as the "disgraced President" as we see Trump board a helicopter ending his twice impeached term as President.

The documentary is a fascinating look at the challenges the Biden administration had to overcome and dig America out of the hole that Trump dug.

This was an interesting and well paced overview that dives into the challenges the Biden Administration came across with interviews with all of the major players involved.

From dealing with the hacking of Russia to overcoming Covid in month number one we see how Biden and his team tackle the problems and put out the fires.

A political puff piece.

[biglsn · 1/10 · 12 November 2022]

Cliff notes version; only watch this if you're a Biden apologist/ truth denier. (See how I worked in the word "denier" like the media does about conservatives?)

Obviously. I am not a fan of President Biden. My 83 year dad says he's the worst President of his life and he actually voted for Jimmy Carter!

I watched this, expecting it to be exactly what it is. A political puff piece that attempts to highlight the "good" that President Biden did in 14 months. In defense of the filmmakers, they didn't have much "good" to work with.

Using the list of "bad" would have filled a miniseries. That said, I watched this entire program hoping that the media may have turned the corner and actually apply impartial journalism to their productions. No such luck.

15% January 6/ Trumps fault, (he sat in his office watching this unfold on TV, doing nothing to stop it)

15% COVID/ Trumps fault, (He didn't have a plan)

10% Afghanistan/ Trumps fault. (We TOLD YOU THIS COULD HAPPEN WEEKS AHEAD OF TIME & Trump promised the Talliban a May withdrawal.)

60% Ukraine. We told you how this would unfold ahead of time.

Claims to "uniting the country," taking peoples jobs & careers away for not getting vaccinated, threatening Americans who didn't follow his mandate, more COVID deaths on his watch even with a vaccine, stopping drilling/ increasing gas prices/ creating world wide inflation/ financing Russias war, spending trillions that this country doesn't have, inviting foreigners to cross our borders illegally, and so on & so on. None of these facts (and many more) were shown or mentioned in this "documentary" so I give it 1 star. 0 stars wasn't an option.

Love him or hate him, Trump is gone and won't likely be allowed back in the playroom for the rich & powerful politicians that is DC. Move on and stop blaming him for everything that goes wrong.

I believe it was PT Barnum who said "a sucker is born every minute."

If there's one thing I've learned in the last 6 years, it's that PT would have seen anyone who believes that the American media is honest/ unbiased and politicians aren't self serving hypocrites, coming for a mile.

Don't waste your time on this. Watch a comedy instead.

Washington Pats Itself on the Back

[mnm619 · 3/10 · 27 October 2022]

This documentary is basically just clips of a handful of people from the Biden team telling you how great they and their administration are. The filmmakers don't provide any critical commentary. The likes of Ron Klain and Jen Psaki don't show any signs of having engaged in any self reflection or self criticism. It makes for a dull documentary that offers few lessons or explanations about anything.

Making it even duller, the production value is pretty low. There's nothing appealing or interesting about the visuals or the audio, and a lot of the interview clips are 50%+ too long for what little information they offer.

I'm not really sure who this was made for. It'd be painfully boring for anyone who's not deeply interested in our politics, but it offers nothing new for anyone who follows the White House at all closely... just the same self-comgratulatory spiels these officials deliver all the time.

*yawn*

Subjective Narrative Documentary

[hvnzqx · 2/10 · 4 November 2022]

This documentary has a bunch of democrats spinning their narrative to turn everything that happened in Biden's first year of presidency positive, without any another perspective or facts to back up their words. Typical indoctrination video to turn people with no critical thinking skills to their side and get their votes. I will give them a bit of credit in that they did sort of admit their blunder of how they coordinated the pull out of troops from Afghanistan. If you're on the left side of politics, discover the facts and review your history. Watch documentaries on history and you'll see the issues with democrats and the suffering their policies and decisions have brought to this world...

At first I thought it might be a satire.

[bobbywell · 2/10 · 2 November 2022]

When I first started watching this I thought it was a mocumentary. However it lacked honesty and humor. So obviously not a Babylon Bee production.

What it is a a lackluster attempt to explain away two years of incompetence.

Anyone who is not absolutely partisan knows what has happens to the United States of America and throughout the world over the past two years and knows this was a failed attempt to put the proverbial " lipstick on a pig" This is neither funny nor good satire and of course the HBO would waste money on this.

Someone should tell them their "golden boy" Bill Marr will not even defend the actions of this administration.

Imdb gave it 4.8 for a reason

[johnathangrimsley · 1/10 · 3 November 2022]

This is obvious fluff piece which makes it hard to watch for anyone including movie critics who are usually not Republican... change my mind. Is there actually anyone on this documentary that thinks they are not doing good. That would actually make this a documentary if you see multiple opinions that don't involve the White House critiquing themselves. Who doesn't think they are a good person or don't do any wrong. Even serial killers probably don't think they are that bad... to themselves. That's what's wrong with this documentary it has no balls and doesn't actually answer any real questions that are not unscripted.