41 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Your Time's Up, Rudy, June 14, 2007
This review is from: Giuliani Time (DVD)
The movie begins with Mayor Giuliani speaking at the Republican Convention delivering his adlib: "As I saw the smoke from the burning building and people jumping to their deaths, I turned to my police commissioner, Bernard Kerik and said, "Thank God, George Bush is our president.'" New Yorkers, being shameless in vocalizing their derision and adept at detecting hyperbole, erupted in "Bronx cheers" throughout the theater.
So begins the story dramatizing the rise of Rudy Giuliani in the New York Republican Party as an ambitious district attorney who was attempting to make his bones by prosecuting high profile cases. It profiles his political life through the end of second term as "hizzoner" of New York.
It illustrates in event after event, familiar to many New Yorkers the level to which one man would stoop to get even, and hurt people he considered his enemies. These "enemies" included his wife, the press, people who stole his thunder or the limelight, those who did not give him their utter fealty, those who disagreed with him, or just poor people whom he denied their constitutional right to federally funded food stamps.
This movie dramatically demonstrates Giuliani's intolerance of anyone's challenge to his authority, and his zero tolerance for criticism of any kind. But perhaps, his greatest hubris was his request of each mayoral candidate (whoever won) to delay being sworn in for three months. So great was Gotham's need for the guidance and leadership of Rudy Giuliani that he felt he was more important than the democratic process and the will of the people. He even wanted to go to court to get it.
Firing his popular police commissioner, William Bratton, his open affair with his communication aide, Christine Latagono, the shooting of Amadou Diallo, the broom handle sodomy of Abner Luema from a police officer saying," It's Giuliani time," to his failed marriages, his infidelities, and his attempt to regulate art in New York, this movie brings out a dark and sinister side of a man who now wants to be President of the United States.
This story was a bit long, but not quite too long, and it certainly deserves watching. It is an accurate portrayal of one man because his behavior and words are documented. This DVD answers the question that one might ask: How is this man so popular everywhere, except where he governed?
See the DVD and you'll have your answer.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Petering out, October 26, 2008
This review is from: Giuliani Time (DVD)
GIULIANI TIME covers the career of Rudolph Giuliani through 2001. Prior to the September 11, 2001, terror attack that made Giuliani the closest thing people seeking a hero could clutch, his political prospects were on a deserved, probably permanent downswing. A great prosecutor, Giuliani's career embodied the Peter Principle as he proved a great failure as New York City's divisive mayor.
The film takes its title from the saying New York City police had for illegal policies the mayor implemented. When an officer searched a young black man for no reason it was "Giuliani time." Ditto the mayor's attack on street artists, whom police arrested for exercising their constitutional right of free speech. You've got to wonder what a city cop arriving home after busting a painter for displaying art told the kids when they asked, "What did you do to make the city safer today?"
GIULIANI TIME ends with 9/11 giving Rudolph Giuliani credibility a second time. Since then Giuliani again proved the Peter Principle, bombing in his run for United States president. Journalist Wayne Barrett, who has followed Giuliani's career and grants interviews to the GIULIANI TIME filmmakers, has since cowritten an informative book on the mayor's post-9/11 livelihood, GRAND ILLUSION. Warning: If you think you could not like Rudolph Giuliani less after GIULIANI TIME, wait until you read GRAND ILLUSION.
See GIULIANI TIME.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll get mad as hell., July 4, 2007
This review is from: Giuliani Time (DVD)
Especially if you live in NYC - watch this film and take a minute to contemplate the damage wrought by the Giuliani administration and the ongoing effects of the policies that were effected under his regime. Excellent commentaries include Norman Siegel and Frances Fox Piven. Its really well done and also captures the perverse charisma of its star - even while expertly debunking the mythology surrounding his "success" as NYC mayor.
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