Evocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie (2013)

Sorry, this movie sucks

Dreadfully Boring

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

"The Mouth" (Morton Downey Jr.), a Nickname that His Fans and Detractors Hung on the Controversial TV Personality, Aptly Described this Poser. A Self Proclaimed Spokesman for the "Little Guy", the Guy Without a Voice. His Right Wing Posing was Most Likely 90% Act and 10% Real.But What You Discover in this Documentary About the Two Year Rise and Fall of a "Personality" that Hosted a TV Talk Show that Went From Obscurity to a Highly Popular Syndication and then as Quickly as it Arrived was Snuffed Out by its Own Inertia.Downey, it Seems, was One of those Pop Culture Icons that Started to Believe His Own Hype and the Illusion Became the Man's Reality. His Off Screen Antics that were Absent Before He was On Magazine Covers and a Household Name, Became Part of the Man's Personality. He Embraced the On Air Shenanigans and Started Living His Life Like His "Character". The End, in Retrospect was Inevitable. After He was Discovered Hoaxing an Attack by Skinheads, it was All Over. His Sincerity was Now in Question and No One Could Take Him Seriously. Not Even His Devoted Audience Nicknamed "The Beast". The Show Devolved Into Circus Acts with Freaks and Strippers. He and the Show Never Recovered. It was a Two Year Pop Culture Comet that Crashed and Burned and Unlike it's Celestial Counterpart, was Not a Pretty Sight.He Must be Given Credit (if that is the term) for Unleashing a Television Format of Divisiveness. Political and Social TV Shows of Varying Personalities and Style that Remain with Us Today. From Reality Shows to Fox News, and Right Wing Talk Radio, it was Mort that Made it All OK. It Sells. Taking a Cue from Joe Pyne a TV Pundit that Came Before Downey, The Mouth just Amped it Up a Notch, Roamed the Studio Instead of Staying Seated, and Cursed, Spit, and Insulted His Guests Ad Nauseum.Overall, the Documentary is a Good Chronicle of the Man and His Show and its Influence and is a Necessary Distillation of a Pop Culture Zeitgeist. The Residue Remains and this is a Good Place to Find Out Where to Put the Thanks or the Blame.

Some people have accused me of being a loud punmouth, and I let it just be; I guess. Speaking of loudmouths, in the late 80's there was a loudmouth that came to instant fame in the form of Morton Downey Jr.; whose talk show was not really much a talk show but more of a forum to defend Americans' injustices in front of a national audience. Downey Jr.'s bullyish "in your face" style was resoundly controversial but it got in the ratings. However, this Downey Jr. did not eventually show that he was the "iron man" of talk television as his show was cancelled in just two years mostly due to his unconventional actions. Nevertheless, Downey Jr's thunderous style did pave the way to what we call today "reality show" programming; and that is for real. Downey Jr's rise and fall is captured effectively in the documentary "Evocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie". It depicted Morton's madness, fervor, and resiliency in numerous arenas of his life with the primary emphasis being on his infamous show. So shut your mouth if you don't like this documentary, because I did!! Kidding! Just wanted to include some Mortonism in my review. So get your Morton motor running, and give this cool doc a try. **** Good

Actually, the storyline was about what you'd expect, told in an interesting manner. Each narrator had conflicting thoughts about this tortured man.The MDJ talk/insult show was a precursor to the brawls of today's reality shows. Downey also paved the way for the uncivilized anti-PC campaign of the 2000s. It was interesting to see Rev. Al Sharpton and Ron Paul making spectacles of themselves. What did they expect to happen? Or maybe that was the point. It is a fast track to celebrity status.I unexpectedly enjoyed the narrative of Pat Buchanan, especially his characterization of the Tea Party members. If you like documentaries, television, or reality TV, this is a good one to see.

Morton Downey, Jr. was a kind of real-life Howard Beale (the mad-as-hell crazy anchorman from the 1976 classic "Network"), and his meteoric rise and fall parallels that of another fictional populist TV personality: "Lonesome" Rhodes, played by Andy Griffith in Elia Kazan's under-rated 1957 movie "A Face in the Crowd." But this story really happened, and Mort really existed.Downey's New Jersey-based talk show was only on the air for two years, from 1988 to 1989. So why is he important? Why watch a documentary about a talk show that ran for just two years, 25 years ago? Understanding this story can help us understand how we got the media we have today.Journalist William Greider called it Rancid Populism. This was the appeal of the Republican Party starting as far back as Nixon. The party posed as the voice of the "Silent Majority," the disaffected common man, while in reality it appealed to the angry, white working class who jumped ship from the Democratic Party following the Civil Rights movement.White working-class people felt "their" country was going down the tubes, and they were partly right. There was a lot to be unhappy about: de-industrialization leading to the decline of manufacturing and the rise of the Rust Belt (go watch "Detropia" for that); the decline of working peoples' wages and the rapid growth of inequality and creation of a new Gilded Age in America. Politicians like Nixon, Reagan, and Bush Sr. were all better at tapping into this anger than the Democrats, making Republicans seem like the party of Joe Sixpack and Joe the Plumber -- instead of the party of Big Business, Big Money, and Wall Street (which is ultimately what both major parties became).The Republicans also understood the marketing of this message better than the Democrats: tap into people's hatred of "the Government" and make the Dems synonymous with Big Government. (How many times already have we heard conservative politicians running for office who say they hate government? Then why run?)The early 90s was when the right-wing Big Media really started up in earnest (what former conservative pundit David Brock has called "The Republican Noise Machine"). Rush Limbaugh, for example, got his start during the Clinton presidency. The Fox News Channel itself also started during the Clinton years, in 1996. Both were part of a generalized conservative backlash against a Democrat in the White House.And this tactic of right-wing populism continues to work today (especially with another Democratic president to attack), and is bigger business than ever -- with billionaire Rupert Murdoch's Fox News channel going strong, the Koch brothers' successful Tea Party movement, and all those TV and radio hosts like Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity who are paid tens of millions of dollars to tell us they're speaking up for the "little guy."Morton Downey, Jr. helped lead the way to this kind of TV "news" or "journalism," even if his show appears obvious and amateurish compared to the slick format and presentation we see today. But a figure like Bill O'Reilly, in particular, owes a tremendous debt to Downey's confrontational, damn-the-torpedoes style of doing "news" and interviews. At the same time trash-talk-show hosts like Jerry Springer and Maury Povich also partly owe their style of crazed three-ring-circuses to Mort. Even the Reverend Al Sharpton, perpetual African-American leader and professional racial ambulance-chaser, owes a debt to Mort, appearing on his show frequently during its short run.The friendship between Sharpton and Downey (briefly shown in the film) offers a clue to the truth behind the image: Mort didn't really believe what he said on the air. Or maybe he did. Anyway, it really didn't matter: it was all just for ratings. Working the crowd into a frenzy, yelling at his guests, having a fight break out in the middle of the show -- Downey knew this was what made for great TV . . . or, at least, it got people's attention. (Most certainly, this is also the case of Bill O'Reilly today: he's a showman who stumbled onto a sure thing; about as authentic as a TV preacher.)At the time, Downey was hated and judged by the "respectable" media. But give 'em a few years, and they'll come around: trash-talk-shows, "reality" shows like "Jersey Shore," Rush, Billy-O, "To Catch a Predator," etc. It's the race to the bottom, the lowest-common denominator, anything in the name of ratings. Entertainment, Infotainment, "News." Who cares if we believe it? Who cares if it's true? He who yells the loudest wins.Mort's show was like an (un-)controlled experiment in pushing the TV talk-show format to its absolute limit, right up to the breaking point -- supposedly in the name of some Archie-Bunker, knee-jerk reactionary-conservative populism that Mort himself didn't even really believe in. Yet, people ate it up, it made him a star and a working-class "hero" almost overnight, and it set the stage for a lot what came later in TV "news" and opinion shows. That's why you should watch this movie.