Customer Reviews

a/k/a Tommy Chong

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A/K/A Tommy Chong is an interesting look at the doper comedian's legal troubles in the early 2000s. For those who don't remember, the U.S. Government arrested Chong because he sold bongs over the Internet. Filmmaker Josh Gilbert follows Chong to prison (where he served nine months) and covers his life after his release.

There is a lot to like in this film. The film recounts Chong's life story and he is an interesting character; he grew up half-Chinese, half-Caucasian in 1950s Canada. Chong also played guitar as a member of the 1960s rock band the Vancouvers, for whom he wrote a top-40 hit ("Does Your Mama Know About Me").

The film does a good job of recounting Chong's initial meeting with Cheech Marin and the beginnings of their career as "Cheech and Chong." I did not think that the film did a particularly good job of explaining Cheech's decision to disband Cheech and Chong. The only interviews with Cheech are archival and Cheech's absence is obvious throughout A/K/A Tommy Chong.

The presentation of Chong's drug case is more "hit and miss." Viewers likely will be fascinated at the steps to which the Feds went to bust Chong. (According to Chong, his company did not ship bongs to Pennsylvania because his employees knew that it was illegal; the film details the contrivances the Feds used to get Chong to ship the bongs that ultimately landed him in prison to Pennsylvania). It is difficult to believe that the U.S. Government spent over $12 million to put Chong in jail. While one may question whether there was a vendetta against Chong, it is revealing that he was the lone defendant without a prison record (of 55 charged) to serve jail time.

Other aspects of the film are not as interesting. Many of the peripheral characters in Chong's life appear in the film, but contribute little. Chong's wife Shelby comes off as his Yoko Ono - an untalented schemer who got her husband to put her on stage. Chong's cellmate and his son (Paris) both appear in segments that should have been cut. There is a boring series of interviews in which people explain how easy it is to make a bong.

The film "stacks the deck" in Tommy's favor, so you might wonder if there is another side to the story. The Government officials who prosecuted Chong are all but accused of fascism. (Filmmaker Gilbert takes a cheap shot in noting that prosecutor Mary Beth Buchanan grew up in "an all-white town," as though that alone is sufficient to reveal her dastardly plans). Gilbert also includes interviews with self-aggrandizing celebrities such as Jay Leno, Bill Maher, and journalist Eric Schlosser.

In the end, despite its shortcomings, A/K/A Tommy Chong is well worth a look. Chong recounts toward the end of the film that many people ask him what prison life is like. Chong said that he replies, "You'll find out." That line made me think. Whatever your politics, the film will force you to consider what role the U.S. Government should play in regulating drugs and punishing those who break drug laws. (Perhaps this is the first Tommy Chong film that ever forced anyone to think). As to whether Tommy is a martyr, a stoner who pushed the Government "over the line," or a little of both, viewers will have to judge for themselves.

The best documentaries tell a compelling and a surprising story and that is exactly what you get with AKA Tommy Chong. The Comedy of Errors that has been the Bush administration are taken to new heights as they single out one benign member of the counter culture movement to be taken down by all means necessary. Funny, outrageous and all shockingly true. My hats off to the filmmaker- a must see in my opinion.

Tommy Chong's drug story is a sad tale told over and over again in our society where someone who is basically harmless and goofy is made an example of by a repressive segment that simply resents his lifestyle. The citizenry did not benefit from this prosecution one bit and, in fact, a lot of money was wasted.

Sure, let's prosecute scum like the late Pablo Escobar or some low life like that but these pointless foolish celebrity cases of an entertaining doofus who likes bongs are utterly meaningless.

a/k/a Tommy Chong is a good movie, and shows how the government used a big name person to create a spectacle out of a harmless industry. The US government wasted time, money, and resources to shut down a business that wasn't doing anything wrong. Rather than fighting the war on terror or the real war overseas they chose to advance careers, and shut down a legitimate business and sent a man to prison whom didn't deserve to go.

This is simply the movie version of Tommy's book, The I Chong: Meditations From the Joint. As with most movies based on a book, the book is better, but that does not make this a bad movie. It is more that a movie, it is a documentary about human rights in the U.S.A. and the truly fascist direction our government is headed. If you have seen this film, but not read the book, by all means do yourself the favor and read it. Many many gaps are filled in, and you will understand and appreciate the interviews with Tommy's cellie and his wife (who has been in Tommy's life longer than Cheech) and his son, who played a major part in the whole ordeal. This is a great DVD, and like the book, is about a lot more than Cheech & Chong comedy or smoking pot. It is just one more example of a failing nation.

I watched this film expecting to see a comedic, biographical portrait of a stoner comedian but instead, much to my surprise, witnessed a truly compelling political documentary about misguided government excess. Not that there weren't funny parts to it, but it was the seriousness of political underpinning that truly impressed me. To think that a stoner burn out who was selling bongs on the internet would end being aggressively targeted and martyred by an over-zealous federal prosecutor in her multi million dollar campaign to put Chong behind bars continues to boggle my mind. I was wondering why I hadn't heard of this film much sooner, but just read on the internet about how the feds raided the warehouse and seized the a/k/a Tommy Chong DVD's!!!!! The story just gets weirder! A must see film.

Buy this dvd, it's not an movie it's a documentary documenting the arrest and
prosecution of him for a bong company he's son had created.
It shows just how evil the goverment can be if they really want to get you.

Everyone needs to see this film. This documentary provides an unbiased insight into the reality of the entrenched mindset and operations of the US government and Department of Justice. Kudos to the Director for having the foresight to produce it.

"I laughed...I cried". Was on a trip, in the hotel...late, going around the cable channels and stopped short. It was a scene of glassblowing. ART. Beautiful, exotic masterfully crafted and achingly luminous > glass. I made myself comfortable and watched the rest. Soon it was revealed to be the family business of Tommy Chong, and the systematic politically motivated federal fist (under John Ashcroft) that wiped it out in a couple of hours. A legal > tax paying > employing > artistically sophisticated > family business... operating in the full light of day, manufacturing unique products sold in the mainstream marketplace for some numbers of years. Until an ambitious, self absorbed PA Atty Gen made it her cause celeb...and he was sent to prison. If you aren't deeply troubled after watching this........
These days there's a din of "small businesses are the engines lift the economy." Except if you'd had a full-on career based on 'counter culture' satire. (I thought that was protected in the Constituion.) I came home and bought the DVD so I could share it. You'll love the walk-about on Venice Beach where random people give instant tutorials on how to make a bong from household objects and produce...and the Kottonmouth Kings' theme over the end credits, not to mention his adorable wife.

A/K/A TOMMY CHONG (Produced/directed by Josh Gilbert, 2008) took forever to get released on DVD ... a bit like Tommy Chong seemed to be embroiled in trouble forever. It's an intimate yet quiet, meditative look at Tommy Chong's legal trouble from a few years back, and how that should have changed America.

Tommy Chong always conjures up three great memories for me: one is the countless records we laughed along with back in the 1970s. Second is the film YELLOWBEARD and third is the film NICE DREAMS, both of which Tommy starred in, and partly wrote. Always viewed as the slightly lesser half of Cheech & Chong, Tommy is in fact a genius in his own right. Few others have changed the landscape of comedy, film and society - and are still around to talk about it all.

This film, part biography, part history of Cheech & Chong, part social history of the attitudes toward marijuana, is the harrowing story of the destruction of Tommy's character and business, his arrest, conviction and sentencing, courtesy of a year-long jack-booted federal sting. His crime? - selling hand-blown, beautiful glass water pipes. Sadly, this type of pipe, technically a "hookah", is known as a "bong". Tommy's company, which he was urged to found at the behest of his eldest son, was called Nice Dreams Enterprises. At the time, it was only illegal in Pennsylvania and Iowa to sell "paraphernalia", so the DEA approached Tommy's company from Pennsylvania.

In a brief period, the DEA agent posing as a Pennsylvania customer called the business 20 times. Entrapment, anyone?

The case of "The United States v. Thomas B. Kin Chong a/k/a Tommy Chong" (2003), in the U.S. District Court, Western District of Pennsylvania, will surely go down in history as a sad chapter of America's inherent fascism. The rule of law means nothing at the federal level, where the shell game is played by the politicians. Tommy had no chance: when the sting came to a head, as one lawyer put it, it "looked like John Dillinger was being arrested!"

Of the fifty-something people charged, only Tommy - with no priors and really no record - was sentenced to 9 months in Taft Federal Prison. FOR SELLING GLASS HOOKAHS. The fool John Ashcfroft took it upon himself to start the war, and prosecuted it via the hare-brained harpie Mary Beth Buchanan. She simply made it her goal in life to get Tommy, and it is Tommy's honest belief that the persecutions are only beginning.

It escapes my memory who else has been convicted and jailed in this way from the world of entertainers. There is Boy George, of course, but somehow Tommy is nowhere near his league. Honestly, I cannot recall any entertainer being slammed this hard. Over NOTHING.

I am dead-set against drugs personally. While I am a lifelong fan of Cheech & Chong, I knew they were harpooning the permanently drug-addled idiot while simultaneously endorsing the freedoms they thought America represented. Yet Tommy, half Chinese, half Scots and a native of Vancouver, knew all too well that just his physical appearance threw him out of the mainstream.

This quiet, thought-provoking film brings back the memories of a few years ago, when I sat in disbelief, stunned that the feds went after Tommy in that way. What had he done? - and the wife said, "It's for bongs!" Not for drugs, not for trafficking? - no, just for selling bongs. A travesty. This film will let the viewer see plainly what this country is really all about, and why.

I always say, you can make your own decisions about drugs, about grass, but watching this film was like seeing films of the earliest anti-Semitic waves beginning in Germany. Sad and sickening. In 2005, Tommy completed his probation and in 2008 he successfully reunited with Cheech Marin. Can't say what they're doing now, but one thing is certain: Tommy Chong will enter history as a beacon of hope for America's freedoms.

This DVD is $4.89 here at Amazon. Aside from it being 80 invaluable minutes, there is no excuse to skip it. You MUST see this travesty of justice, which truly takes its place among all the American travesties of justice.