by Chuck Lilley

Rating: Four thumbs up out of five

I found the content within this 90-minute documentary disturbing, but regardless of political affiliation, all Americans should see the film and draw their own conclusions.

The fact that it was produced by a veteran Hollywood filmmaker in Gerald Molen (“Schindler’s List,” “Rain Man,” “Jurassic Park”) creates worthwhile entertainment value.

The film is crisply narrated by Dinesh D’Souza, President of The King’s College in New York City. He has much in common with President Obama. Both come across as highly personable, both are 51 years old, both have an Ivy League education (D’Souza was Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth), and both come from humble beginnings (the narrator grew up in Mumbai, India).

Many facts from the documentary also appear within D’Souza’s New York Times best-selling book, “The Source of Obama’s Rage,” but he mainly relies upon passages from Obama’s own memoir, “Dreams from My Father,” in an attempt to follow Obama’s philosophical compass.

Like a well-trained prosecutor, D’Souza constructs a logical case for understanding both Obama’s worldview and his rationale for “transforming” America and traditional American values. In doing so, he takes his audience on a fascinating journey that begins at the gravesite of Obama’s father in Kenya, followed by stops in Indonesia and Hawaii.

Interviews are conducted with George Obama, the President’s half-brother, with professional colleagues of Obama’s natural father and with professors who taught Obama’s parents at the University of Hawaii.

One professor provides alarming evidence to support exposure of the young Barry Soetoro (Obama’s legal name until later in his college years) to Frank Marshall Davis, a close family friend and mentor. Davis is vetted as a controversial card-carrying communist who consistently wrote controversial “anti-American” articles for The Honolulu Record newspaper throughout the 1960s.

Among Obama’s Columbia University college professors who are mentioned is Edward Said, a controversial voice for many political groups that advocated Israel’s outright destruction. In fairness to the President, the extent of professorial influence on college students can be highly speculative.

D’Souza’s journey depicts modern-day Obama as a product of bitter, anti-colonial parental freedom fighters. He provides evidence of their parental views towards Western colonizers, specifically the British and the Dutch, as having unfairly exploited the wealth of Kenya and Indonesia for Western material gain.

From their influence, D’Souza extrapolates that Obama’s conscious actions as President, his “Dream,” reflect a desire to succeed where his deceased father failed in ridding Kenya of all vestiges of Western influence. This premise D’Souza offers, would arguably account for much of President Obama’s anti-Western, anti-capitalistic, anti-Israeli, pro-Muslim and pro-Palestinian deference and confusing world apologies.

No doubt, D’Souza provides another dimension towards answering, “Who is the real Obama and what does he stand for?” Whether the audience buys into his premise as either largely psychological babble or as representing an accurate basis for Obama’s worldview, likely depends on one’s decided voting preference. My own view is that D’Souza is probably on to something, but that the truth lies somewhere in between.

Regardless of the potential audience disagreement with the film’s premise, what is not in doubt is that President Obama continues to overwhelmingly receive the benefits of a supportive, non-inquisitive media. Such media complicity has allowed premises such as those suggested by Mr. D’Souza to become nationally prominent.

Media devotion to the Democratic candidate is underscored within this documentary through an exchange between veteran media commentators Tom Brokaw and Charlie Rose. In an astonishing moment of candor, they acknowledge their inability to understand the worldview of President Obama.

Undeterred, both men are on record as being two of the President’s more vocal supporters.

A thinking-informed citizenry expects intellectual rigor to be central to the job descriptions of national commentators. The film’s example of media job performance failure as exemplified by Brokaw and Rose is a prime reason why “2016:Obama’s America” has been so well received in theaters across the nation despite its limited promotional budget.

The return engagement of this documentary is playing at the Cinemark Cinemas in Chesapeake Square Mall and Harbour View Grande Cinemas in Suffolk

CHUCK LILLEY of Franklin is a retired corporate manager. His email address is chulill@yahoo.com.