#channel five

I had heard the film was not only tackling the run up to January 6th, but how the media was at least partially responsible for it, and it somewhat hits this target. However This Place Rules also wants to say that media companies of both sides (namely Fox News and CNN) are both complicit, yet the film rarely focuses on it. More time is spent interviewing Alex Jones, and the more progressive news sources are also being lumped in with social media platforms deplatforning Jones and his fans, pushing them into further isolated echo chambers.

This Place Rules is most successful at making the interviewees look stupid in ways that validate viewers who are opposed to the interviewee's politics. The film includes leftists too including self-proclaimed antifa, but gives plenty airtime to the more awkward members who could be dismissed as calling anyone a Nazi, or more interested in legalized weed. The whole film exudes awkwardness that makes pretty much everyone on screen look bad, with perhaps the exception of Callaghan.

I really wanted to like it, but it mostly comes off as shallow, Both Sides blaming, and more interested in gaining apolitical clout than really getting into the root causes for January 6th.