Horns And Halos begins as a spunky celebration of DIY activism and youthful anti-authoritarianism, and ends as an American tragedy. In between, the film spirals deeper into darkness until it reaches a moral abyss from which one of its protagonists will never return. Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley's documentary follows the sad tale of J.H. Hatfield, a struggling writer of quickie biographies who made headlines when Fortunate Son, his biography of George W. Bush, accused the then-presidential candidate of covering up a drug arrest. Hatfield quickly became a minor celebrity, before his inability to back up his assertions resulted in St. Martin's Press dropping the book. Self-styled punk publisher Soft Skull subsequently scooped up Fortunate Son and planned a fairly major release, only to be hit with the revelation that Hatfield had spent time in prison for conspiracy to commit murder. Horns And Halos focuses primarily on two men: Hatfield, who cuts a Willy Loman-esque figure as he tries to redeem his public image against staggeringly difficult odds, and Sander Hicks, the youngish head of Soft Skull. The two are a study in contrasts. Hatfield is a paranoid, introverted loner with a hard life behind him and a bleak future ahead of him, while Hicks is a gregarious, outgoing self-promoter brimming with confidence; his guileless enthusiasm at first seems grating, then naïve, then finally tragic. Horns And Halos dredges up disturbing questions: Does Hatfield's sordid past render his work irrelevant? At what point does a documentarian have an obligation to intervene in the life of a distraught and suicidal subject? Is it possible for an ex-con to get a fair deal in a country obsessed with law and order? The film doesn't offer any easy answers to those questions. Instead, it circles in on its two subjects as they devolve into defensiveness, then sadness and despair. Horns And Halos isn't a particularly well-assembled documentary, but the queasy, hypnotic power of its story and subjects makes its technical shortcomings forgivable.