Totally Under Control is a new documentary about the response to COVID-19 by the US government that’s available on streaming. It’s not only new, but also radically up-to-date, including a last minute text insertion at the end of the movie that Trump tested positive for the disease a day after the film was complete.

This is a great and infuriating documentary covering a lot of topics that most people who follow the news will already know. And to around 30% of viewers will be seen as Fake News. So, while I think it’s a timely, important piece of film-making, it’s probably also preaching to the choir. Hopefully enough “on the fence” types will be able to give it a look with open minds.

So if all this info is already known (and disbelieved by some), is it a necessary watch? I think so because it probably will contain some nuggets of information you missed… and because it’s nice to see it all laid out in a timeline. And as the doc went on, the angrier I got. It’s a pretty even-handed movie – it’s not trying to be rabble rousing kind of flick. It only lowers itself to Michel Moore-like tricks a couple of times – mainly through music cues/commentary (like playing CW McCall’s Convoy when discussing states having to scramble and compete to buy PPE). I’m not going to claim the movie doesn’t have a point-of-view though. It’s clearly as angry as it makes the viewer, but it tries to keep things to a “just the facts” attitude.

With political hot-button topics, you most often see high profile docs with one-sided, disingenuous arguments from people like Michael Moore or Dinesh D’Souza. This film is partially one-sided due, no doubt, to the difficulty of getting the other side to talk or because those with a different argument are actively working the problem. But the people they do have on camera were often part of the attempt to manage the disease but, for one reason or another, are now in the private sector. Every one of them, no doubt, will be called disgruntled former employees which would be emblematic of part of the doc’s argument.

I highly recommend this film as a historical snapshot of where we are with the pandemic in October of 2020. It’s depressing, it’s infuriating, and it’s disappointing. And, yes, it’s a direct attack on the politicization of science and medicine in the United States… and on Trump in particular. It’s sad to say that some people will refuse to believe it because of that.

I look forward to a day where more of the story is allowed to be told.

Score: 90