Waco: The Rules of Engagement (1997)

This isn't the first time that a group who chose to opt out of more traditional societal participation and remove to somewhere remote and private have been called a cult, but rarely can their activities have caused quite such consternation with, in this case President Clinton's particular version of, "Uncle Sam". By ensuring that most of the broadcast media were placed safely out of range, the authorities have ensured that there is little actual archive of substance to substantiate many of the claims made around the infamous confrontation caused by the antics of David Koresh and his "Branch Davidian" sect of Christianity. Sadly, though, I think that pictorial absence really causes this overlong and very verbose analysis to struggle. It's not that I wanted to see charred bodies being taken from burnt-out wreckage, but the seemingly endless Congressional testimonies served only one purpose for me: to illustrate just how hopelessly partisan and incompetent so many of our democratic representatives are. Those interrogations, augmented with a few more pertinent contributions from people more familiar with matters religious, legal and psychological, form a framework that I felt cried out for some guiding journalism. This film presents us with quite a disjointed series of postulations about just what made the undoubtedly charismatic Koresh tick, but with so little hard fact to underpin any of it, it became just all a little too speculative. Was he a man holed-up on his ranch with an harem of underage girls to prey upon, or had he actually read his bible from start to finish and decided to avail himself and his colleagues of their constitutionally enshrined right to freedom of worship - unfettered by the state or it's suspicious armed agencies? That we will probably never know especially as many of the survivors do not paint a picture of a virgin-obsessed despot, nor does the possession of an industrial scale armoury in Texas appear to be any great cause for concern, so by the end of hour one I felt that a condensed version of what might loosely be described as the facts before embarking on more pared down versions of the Congressional activities might have left this with more direction. By the start of hour three, I will confess to have largely lost interest in what stopped being an investigative look at a tragedy and started becoming one more illustrative of battles of point-scoring and to see who could cover their backsides - or those of their bosses - most efficiently. It does go to prove one thing, though, and that is the benefits of not having a written constitution. It is all well when it is establishing some Magna Carta style of fundamentals, but once it passes it's second century it really doesn't resonate much relevance to a society that bears little resemblance to that enjoyed by those descendents of the Pilgrim Father's fleeing the tyranny of King James II. Interpretation becomes key, and that is always subject to political or religious subjectivity - and in a nation where the State is so prominent and entitled, this cannot be good for ordinary people who just don't happen to conform. It does raise some provacative points, but they are lost amidst all the verbiage and I was disappointed.