Boycott

Julia Bacha's documentary follows three individuals fighting recently enacted laws in over 30 states that forbid American citizens from engaging in any boycott of Israel. The movie explores quite a lot in just over 70 mins; touching on how these laws are crafted, why there is so much support in both parties for something so thoroughly un-American as forcing people to sign a loyalty oath to a foreign country, and how the template for these laws can be used to prevent people from boycotting anything from Planned Parenthood to the NRA. I wish the film drove home that last point more. The film ends on an upbeat note, even as more of these laws are passed before the film is released. Bacha's structure is fairly formulaic for this type of doc, and the footage is rather flat, but the film makes its important points clearly and effectively.