Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary

Mumia Abu-Jamal haters and supporters both speak in Stephen Vittoria's docu-manifesto. And while anti-Mumia types are typically Fox blowhards and right-wingers as expected, the prison inmate's defenders also often live down to stereotypes of tenured-professor coffeehouse-Marxist liberalism, championing their soft-spoken hero in slam-poet recitations, whilst condemning the USA as—no kidding—the source of all evil in the modern world. Between sidebars about American (especially, Philadelphian) racism, Abu-Jamal's own bio comes across in fragments. Born Wesley Cook in 1954 (his own mother disliked it when he took a new quasi-Swahili name), the bookish youth, radicalized by Black Panther literature, became a respected multimedia journalist, albeit one heavily skewed to Afrocentric politics. His profile allegedly got him targeted by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI and Philadelphia's brutal police establishment under mayor Frank Rizzo. He was convicted of murder in a 1981 shootout that left Abu-Jamal wounded and a city patrolman dead. From a death row cell, Abu-Jamal has produced books of prose, politics, and poetry, and recorded radio commentaries. Although prominent authors interviewed here include Cornel West, Alice Walker, and Dick Gregory, other scribes have blasted Abu-Jamal as a leftist thug with savvy PR. Both sides might agree, however, that this documentary illustrates the incendiary politics of race and stains of bigotry that led to the shots fired and the Mumia-as-POW mystique. Extras include a featurette on Abu-Jamal's court case. Considerably updating 1996's Mumia Abu-Jamal: A Case for Reasonable Doubt? (VL-7/97), this is recommended. Aud: C, P. (C. Cassady)