Audience Gives D'Souza Film 90% Rating; Rotten Tomatoes Shows 0% for Same Film
Conservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza recently released a new docu-drama titled “Death of a Nation” which draw parallels between the presidencies of Abraham Lincoln and Donald Trump, specifically how Democrats reacted to both, and points to stark similarities between the American Democrat Party and the fascist racists of Europe like Germany’s Hitler and Italy’s Mussolini.
Unsurprisingly, the film has been widely panned by the predominantly liberal professional movie critics, so much so that the Rotten Tomatoes website issued a zero percent “fresh” rating from Tomatometer critics, as all eleven professionals who reviewed the film classified it as “rotten” and gave it an average rating of 1.9 out of 10.
However, while the liberal critics hated the film, it scored a 90 percent rating on the site from actual audience members, regular movie-goers who viewed the film and absolutely loved it — 3,526 of them, to be exact, who collectively gave the film 4.5 out of 5 stars.
Let’s take a look at a few of the critiques offered up by the liberal critics, so we can see exactly what it was about the film that earned such poor reviews.
One thing to note, though, before proceeding is that we won’t see any factual counters to the assertions put forward by D’Souza, which by the way are based off of extensive research compiled over the years in two separate books that formed the basis for the film.
“D’Souza quotes Hitler (played by Pavel Kríz) in one scene as saying, ‘if you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.’ It’s a concept D’Souza has taken to heart,” wrote Adam Graham of the Detroit News.
Another critic, Peter Sobczynski of RogerEbert.com, suggested that the film was payback from D’Souza to President Trump for the presidential pardon the filmmaker received, and wrote, “If ever there was a movie that looked as if it had been slapped together in a couple of weeks as part of a quid pro quo agreement involving a dubious-seeming criminal pardon, Death of a Nation is that film.”
“No one expects, of course, that D’Souza would make a thoughtful, balanced or historically accurate documentary. But is it unreasonable to hope that he make one that doesn’t bore the pants off us?” declared Frank Schek of the Hollywood Reporter.
Owen Gleiberman of Variety stated of the film, “In ‘Death of a Nation,’ Dinesh D’Souza is no longer preaching to the choir; he’s preaching to the mentally unsound.”
“D’Souza fans and Trump apologists will flock to this, misguided moths to a misleading flame. In that way, it’s a perfect representation of the current climate. In every other way, it’s a mess,” sneered Bill Goodykoontz of the Arizona Republic.
To be sure, some of these critics may have provided some counterfactual and historically accurate claims of their own against the assertions put forward in D’Souza’s film, but that seems rather unlikely, given the utter failure of critics to do so with regard to D’Souza’s prior films, books, or speeches on college campuses, as again, he bases his claims off of extensive research that is well-documented and cited.
That said, the sharp critiques of the liberal critics highlight the incredible bias held by the leftist “elites” toward the regular men and women of America’s heartland, also known as the folks who spend hard-earned money to buy the tickets to see the movies that these critics are paid to watch and review.
It is also worth noting that, while audiences gave the film a 90 percent score, Rotten Tomatoes seemingly picked the one negative audience review to highlight on their site, which simply stated, “Thought I’d check it out, but what a waste of time.”
Of the 76 pages of audience reviews, the overwhelming majority positive and rated “5 stars,” one viewer summed up the stark disparity in ratings: “I think this marks a new level of polarization in this country, I’ve never seen anything quite like this Rottentomatoes critics vs. the people phenomenon. One of the major tactics of the left is to co-opt institutions and organizations. You can see their work in our schools, news outlets, sports coverage, and of course in Hollywood.”
There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of other audience member reviews similar to the one above, such as one that read, “Great movie! I find it hilarious that ‘critics’ are slamming the movie — shows their true motives. Thanks Dinesh!” and another which aptly stated, “When professional critics give a movie a zero rating, that makes it a must-see.”
Compare and contrast the audience member reviews with those of the “professional” critics, and it is no wonder that so many people view a large part of the media as “fake news” and out of step with the rest of the people who make up this great nation.
The Western Journal has previously published sponsored content affiliated with ‘Death of a Nation.’ This article is independent of that content.
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