Review – The Protocols of Zion

This could have been a much better movie. I was already familiar with the history of this infamous anti-Semitic hoax, though the historical background part of the production might have been more useful to viewers who didn’t already know it. The director’s personal history was self-indulgent in an NPR sort of way and could easily have been cut. Slightly more interesting – though still pretty predictable – were the standard cast of Holocaust deniers and conspiracy theorists who think the Jewish people who worked in the World Trade Center were secretly warned not to report to work on Sept. 11. Though the counterpoint from a Holocaust survivor and an official from the NYC coroner’s office supplies solid emotional content, I can’t help but feel that by now it should really be beneath the dignity of a responsible film-maker to have to refute racist stupidity. Thus my favorite part of this production was the consideration of the role the Protocols are playing in the current unrest in West Asia. And here far too little is made of the inability of people on both sides of the conflict to draw lines between Jewish people in general and the Israeli government in particular. Overall this isn’t a terrible movie, but some additional shooting and a little re-editing could have made it into something truly worthwhile. Mildly amusing