The Weather Underground, a compelling reflection on a radical leftist splinter group that formed in 1969 and continued its activities through the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, premiered at Sundance in late January and is now receiving a theatrical release in early summer. In the time between, the war in Iraq began and quickly concluded, a testament not only to the efficiency of the American military, but also to the swiftness with which dissent was squashed before any significant resistance could be mobilized. While feelings of nostalgia aren't exactly appropriate for a wrong-headed organization like the Weathermen–which, after all, was responsible for numerous bombings of American government institutions–Sam Green and Bill Siegel's documentary sheds a cold light on how far the Left has fallen. Inspired by a line from Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" ("You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"), the Weathermen broke away from the group Students for a Democratic Society during its annual convention in 1969. Furious that peaceful antiwar demonstrations had only resulted in further escalation of the war and increased government oppression, the Weathermen's founders decided to answer violence with violence–or, as their motto put it, "Bring The War Home." Their initial strategy was radical in the extreme, based on the terrorist philosophy that all Americans were legitimate targets of attack, because so-called "innocents" were in essence acquiescing to an ongoing atrocity. But after a homemade bomb short-circuited in a New York townhouse, leaving three members dead, the Weathermen determined it was wrong to advocate indiscriminate violence and worked to ensure that future bombing targets were cleared of civilians. To a large extent, The Weather Underground tells an ironic success story: Over the better part of a decade, the Weathermen carried out several audacious attacks on public buildings, helped spring Timothy Leary from a California prison, and eluded the FBI until they voluntarily turned themselves in. (Amazingly, the only member who served any real prison time was arrested on unrelated charges; most were released due to the FBI's illegal surveillance methods.) Green and Siegel round up several former Weathermen, including Bernardine Dohrn (once called "the most dangerous woman in America" by J. Edgar Hoover) and Mark Rudd (leader of Columbia University's student strike), for a thoughtful postmortem that finds them regretful but not exactly repentant. With a skillful assemblage of interviews and archival footage, the film examines the group's relationship (or lack thereof) with other leftist militants like the Black Panthers, the impact (or lack thereof) of its symbolic bombings, and the extent to which its extremism played into the government's hands. But most of all, The Weather Underground serves as a fascinating window into an era of radical dissent that now seems centuries past.