A blind mountain climber who scales Everest. A cerebral-palsy sufferer who coasts through his 18th Boston Marathon with his father behind the wheelchair. A bar-band frontman who wants his struggling group to rock like Pantera, only they're "not that tough." These are just some of the inspirational figures featured in America's Heart And Soul, a star-spangled plea for the hearts and minds of Disney shareholders. For those who don't follow the trades, Louis Schwartzberg's steaming pile of Americana will seem especially curious, since its commercial-slick vignettes aren't tethered to any theme, other than a few Successories slogans on freedom and "keeping the passion alive." If nothing else, the film will endure as a hilarious camp artifact of the Bush & Benetton Age, when political correctness and reactionary patriotism once clasped hands in the Mickey Mouse Parade.
Posed as counter-programming to Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, which was developed and forcibly sold off by Disney subsidiary Miramax, America's Heart And Soul represents apple-pie mythmaking at its most insidiously thoughtless. Rarely has the country been more polarized and politically charged, yet Schwartzberg and his studio masters pretend like everything's A-OK, as if helicopter shots of purple mountains' majesty and amber waves of grain will somehow erase the shame of Abu Ghraib. With flop-sweat on its brow, the film works hard to sell the cornpone idea of America back to itself, but are there really any buyers for this lemon?
Arbitrary in number and sequence, the two dozen or so mini-profiles zigzag frenetically from gorgeous landscapes to diverse urban centers, weaving what amounts to a crazy-quilt tapestry. (And, if there's any doubt, Schwartzberg shoots an Appalachian woman literally weaving a tapestry!) A few of the subjects would be interesting if more than five minutes were devoted to them: They include a Vermont dairy farmer who stages a musical version of Dracula, a daredevil New York City bike messenger, and a Methodist minister with a broadly inclusive congregation. Other profilees seem chosen for geographical convenience alone, so Schwartzberg can catch magic-hour views of Monument Valley, Telluride, and Napa Valley.
Peppered with John Mellencamp songs and the umpteenth montage set to Smash Mouth's "All Star," America's Heart And Soul celebrates each of its red, white, and blue clichés with aerial views, time-lapse photography, or generous swells of music. Technically, the film is a documentary, but it's closer to an advertisement or a state-funded propaganda film, calibrated to appeal to emotional, unreflective instincts through shimmering hogwash. If this is a real cross-section of America, then where are the needy, the disenfranchised, and the assholes?