I don't consider myself politically minded and went to see this movie hoping to learn something. I was hoping for a "big picture" unbiased view that laid out all the irrefutable facts and allowed the viewer to make their own educated decision, assuming that based on the title there would be more good than negative to sway most mildly intelligent viewers to a positive point of view. The first half seemed promising in this regard, but the by the time the movie was 2/3 done, I was growing bored and contemplating leaving.

Really all I heard were half-baked counterpoints to the common criticisms of America based on one man's opinions, which at the end of the day are only a small part of a much, MUCH bigger picture and really, nothing new. His viewpoints are largely hand-plucked out of that context in order to illustrate his own opinion of America. D'Souza is entitled to his opinion, but opinions are not always fact (and as we know, "everyone has one"), and should not be the basis of a "documentary". Mr. D'Souza's logic is hopelessly flawed, preferring to harp on very rare success cases than address the overwhelming circumstances that kept those cases rare. In trying to prove that suffering was/is either more universal or more avoidable than we previously thought, he effectively belittles it altogether. Sprinkle in a bit of "ooooh, the Government is spying on you" and you have this movie. This is not a historic documentary as much as a political agenda with too much to say to really say much of anything at all.

In the end, what he came up with is quite simply a very long anti-Democrat political campaign ad.

Any political debate will be polarizing and that is reflected in the reviews here. All this said, I did actually agree with a few points, but just like my middle-of-the-road political outlook, I'm rating it a square 5 of 10. I can discern fact from opinion, and I can make up my own mind when facts are presented to me... but this movie only presents the facts that support D'Souza's opinions which is again, only a very small part of a much bigger picture. I was less entertained or informed than I was annoyed, feeling like D'Souza underestimated my intelligence as the viewer.

I guest it's impossible to make a balanced political documentary.

When I saw the trailer I thought this was going to be a narrative that fantasizes what the world would be like without America, or at best a full dramatization of that ideal, but I guest it's because I'm not familiar with the book it was based on that I though this.

The movie makes fair points about America. It goes over what would be considered by a lot some dark issues with America (Native Americans, slavery and capitalism to mention a few). Each American has a stake in one issue and with that stake should be how you judge all the information the filmmaker gives out, which I felt was honest and fair to both sides of the coin. For me it was not a matter of weather you agreed or disagreed with what is fact, it's more of a matter of how America should work,and how it does work.

I'll say this for the filmmaker, he made me believe in his love of America. That's the best part of the movie. The documentary tries to make you feel that you should not be ashamed of America's mistakes and the only way we can make amends is by moving forward and focusing on the ideals that America was built on.

But the documentary felt like this man's own personal fight with Obama, Not the President of the United States, but Obama himself. This is where the documentary fell off for me. It's not that what he said is not true, but just when I was convinced by his caused, he turned around and showed me that all this was because he hated one man.

I will not lie, I'm on our current President's side, and at the same time I did not like it when Micheal Moore bashed the Bush administration with his documentaries during his time in office. with me, it did not help his cause to see how one sided he is.

But I guess the focus on just the facts without these personal attacks would be asking too much for any American. I almost decided not to see the movie when I saw it was from the same guy who made 2016, so the movie works best if you fully believe in his views.

Dinesh D'Souza's "America" sets out to disprove the view that America is the source of evil in the world, and he at least succeeds in clarifying the debate. What does it mean to say America is good or bad? Is anybody or anything all good or all bad? D'Souza definitely makes a case against the simplistic view that America is all bad.

One of his first targets is author Howard Zinn whose "People's History of the United States" is here characterized as an exercise in cherry-picking. For example, it is debatable to argue that the actions of Christopher Columbus and the Spanish conquistadors reflect on the reputation of the United States of America when they weren't even Americans. As a tonic to Zinn's view of America, D'Souza offers Alexis De Tocqueville's "Democracy in America," which takes a more rounded view of America both good and bad, coming out with a qualified thumbs up.

The way the world has always worked, says D'Souza, is conquest and imperialism; yet, if anything, America has been less inclined to follow the path of conquest and imperialism than the rest of the world. America has set itself a higher ideal, explicitly declaring that things should be different. Americans live up to that ideal as often and perhaps more often than they don't.

For example, D'Souza, who narrates the movie from beginning to end, says that every other continent had slavery before America (by which he always means the U.S.) existed. What is unique about America is that Americans held the ideal that all men are created equal and many Americans realized that it conflicted with the reality of slavery; so America fought a war with itself to free the slaves. Nitpickers will point out that this was not the only reason for the Civil War, but it was the reason for so many who fought that it determined that one outcome would be the abolition of slavery.

After World War II, the most powerful country left standing was the United States. While it arguably interfered in the affairs of other countries, it did not conquer them (as did other countries such as the Soviet Union). The United States invested tremendous resources in the Viet Nam War, but while this was arguably a wrong-headed endeavor, it was never the intention of the U.S. to conquer Viet Nam—just as it was never the intention of recent administrations to conquer Iraq; eventually letting them determine their own course was always in the plan. This is arguably a bad way to go about things from America's own point of view: why does this country keep liberating other countries—at great cost in blood and treasure—only to set them free? This policy works wonderfully on occasion (see Germany and Japan) but it also has been a terrible waste in some other cases. D'Souza does spend a good deal of the movie dealing with the charge that America conquered land from Native Americans and Mexico. Again, I think he has reset the terms for further debate more than demolished his opposition.

In his defense of capitalism and, more properly, the free market, D'Souza is most successful. He shows how the free market works when it is allowed to work, giving America the highest standard of living in world history. When the system is perverted, however, D'Souza does not turn a blind eye. The policies of the administration of President Barack Obama come in for a drubbing here. D'Souza already looked at the president's legacy at much greater length in his previous movie, "2016." Here he makes a memorable indictment of the motives behind the health care legislation known as Obamacare when he says that Obama made people think that it is he and the American people against the insurance companies, when it is really he and the insurance companies against the American people. (Who benefits, after all, when people are forced by law to buy health insurance?)

The movie also reenacts some historical events and portrays numerous historical figures both famous and less well-known. Don Taylor is impressive as Abraham Lincoln—better than many other Lincoln portrayers in the scores of dramas and documentaries that have featured the president. Other reenactors are good as well, particularly Janitta Swain as African-American businesswoman Madame C. J. Walker. Josh Bonzie is a little weak as Frederick Douglass, and I am afraid that his obvious wig does not help, though that is more the fault of the make up and hair department. The real Douglass had what later would be compared to an Afro, but he didn't look quite so much like Madame Pompadour as he does here.

And how could I forget the rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" by Madison Rising. (See their rendition without seeing the movie at www.madisonrising.com.) Their knock-out rock version of the national anthem kept the audience in the theater during the closing credits (even if we weren't quite sure whether or not to stay in our seats).