It's rarely a good idea for a director to make a biography with unchecked adulation for its subject, but the pitfalls are exponentially increased when he or she also imitates Citizen Kane's brilliant framing device, using a reporter's inquiry to illuminate a person's life. One exception, Todd Haynes' underrated Velvet Goldmine, was witty enough to show that when the reporter got deeper into his investigation, more was revealed about himself than his ambiguous glam-rock hero. Robert Greenwald's stultifying Abbie Hoffman biopic, Steal This Movie!, is nowhere near as clever. Far from the prismatic ingenuity of Citizen Kane, the film is like a multi-faceted examination of a cardboard box, with each new side of Hoffman's life looking not unlike the one that came before it. Greenwald, a veteran director of TV movies such as The Burning Bed, serves up a late-'60s gloss that seems better suited to the small screen, which has provided a steady home for the counterculture's greatest hits. Leading an impressive cast of indie stalwarts, Vincent D'Onofrio gives an oddly dissociated performance as Hoffman, the colorful activist and founder of the Youth International Party, whose protests at the 1968 Democratic Convention led to his trial as one of the Chicago Seven. The story opens in 1977, several years after Hoffman was forced to go underground (using the alias "Barry Freed") to dodge cocaine-possession charges. A journalist tracks him down for an interview, expanding the piece to include many of the key figures in his life, including his dedicated wife Anita (Janeane Garofalo), fellow activists Jerry Rubin (Kevin Corrigan) and Stew Albert (Donal Logue), and crusading lawyer Gerry Lefcourt (Kevin Pollak). Steal This Movie! covers the highlights of Hoffman's legacy—his efforts to register black voters in Mississippi, the Free Store, his psychic circle around the Pentagon, his stunt to throw money on the floor of the Stock Exchange—but the film lacks any real dimension. Questions linger: Did Hoffman's reputation as a showman and egotist ever corrupt his ideals? How did his long period as Barry Freed affect his identity? Too eager in his appeal for sainthood, Greenwald shies away from the flaws that made Hoffman complex and human.