Great Communicator, Great Liberator
A new documentary about Ronald Reagan's war on communism puts the Cold War -- and the nature of evil -- into compelling perspective.
by Gary Schneeberger, editor

"Of all the arts," Communist dictator Vladimir Lenin said in 1922, "the most important is the cinema."

The truth of that statement is powerfully evident -- in ways that even Lenin would have to find ironic -- in the documentary "In the Face of Evil," recently released on DVD.

Tracing Ronald Reagan's 40-year war against communism -- beginning as president of the Screen Actors Guild and ending with him orchestrating the collapse of the Soviet Union as president of the United States -- the film challenges notions of documentaries as being either a) boring or b) lie-laden polemics from the viewfinder of Michael Moore.

The power of "In the Face of Evil" comes not so much from any new revelations about Reagan's opposition to Soviet totalitarianism -- although there are a few -- as from the filmmakers' evocative storytelling. Producers Tim Watkins and Stephen K. Bannon (who also directed) have woven together a thoughtful narrative that connects a series of historical dots, documenting how the containment and appeasement strategies employed by presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Carter left the world on the brink of Soviet domination by the time Reagan came to Washington in 1981.

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