Us follows the Wilson family - Adelaide (Lupita Nyong'o), Gabe (Winston Duke), Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and Jason (Evan Alex) - on vacation to … [9], The filmmakers also sought to license the song "It's America" recorded by Rodney Atkins, but the licensing was denied by one of the songwriters due to the political premise of the documentary. [20] A preliminary fix stopped listing results for either of D'Souza's documentaries.
Romano said the filmmaker's counterarguments were disingenuous and did not prove Zinn wrong. "[54] Michael Berkowitz, also writing for The Huffington Post, said of the scene, "[D'Souza's] suggestion that his own criminal conviction and his cheating on his wife are the result of political targeting are embarrassing and without support. [34], The Times-Picayune reported, "America wasn't widely screened for critics, but the first handful of reviews are... not particularly glowing," saying that the reviews essentially labeled the film as "partisan". Conservative commentators expressed a mix of full and qualified support for the documentary and D'Souza's intentions. [49] In Salon, Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig called it a "laughable embarrassment" which ranges "from atrociously bad argumentation to humiliating propaganda". Political commentators analyzed D'Souza's rebuttal of Howard Zinn's criticisms, the filmmaker's treatment of Saul Alinsky, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and D'Souza's depiction of his own criminal prosecution. "[4] National Review's Jay Nordlinger said "I myself depart a bit from D'Souza on Alinskyism: I regard Obama and Hillary as mainstream Democrats, no different from Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, and the rest of the gang. The filmmakers also emailed 120,000 evangelical churches asking them to promote the film and hired the company Faithit.com to contact 80,000 Christian consumers. Tsai said, "'America' seems more intent on editorializing, razzling and dazzling than on stimulating civic debate."
[32], Lionsgate released the film on Digital HD on October 14, 2014 and on DVD and Blu-ray on October 28, 2014,[33] a week before the national Election Day on November 4. [24] The UK-based Manifest Film Sales acquired rights to distribute America outside the United States with the goal of screening the documentary at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, but the screening did not take place. Hays said he would not object if America was paired with a liberal film and that he would requisition copies of America from charitable groups to give schools to avoid burdening Florida's taxpayers. For the weekend of July 4–6, 2014, it grossed $2.7 million and ranked 11th at the box office. [36] Rotten Tomatoes surveyed 24 critics and, categorizing the reviews as positive or negative, assessed 22 as negative and 2 as positive. [51] U.S. News & World Report's Hemmer said D'Souza's statement that Zinn's book A People's History of the United States was part of mainstream education was incorrect: "Though influential, the book was hardly hegemonic. With Obama and Clinton both having links to Alinsky, Hemmer said Alinsky "has become the natural conduit to transfer criticisms of Obama to Clinton". [5] D'Souza identifies himself as an Indian immigrant who chose America, and has been impressed with what a unique force for good it is, something Americans have traditionally agreed with. Leydon said the acting in the historical re-enactments was of inconsistent quality. The Hollywood Reporter said America "opened to solid numbers" with $39,000 for a theater average of $13,000.