Film

Baby boomers, rage against the dying of the light! As Bernard Shakey, his nom de cinéma, Neil Young rolls the cameras on himself and geriatric bandmates David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash as they tenaciously cling to social relevance by generally preaching to the converted during their 2006 antiwar Freedom of Speech tour. Most of the emphasis is on songs from Young’s solo album Living with War, which CSN obligingly play in what they deem a “benevolent dictatorship” under the prolific singer-songwriter.

Songs calling for Bush’s impeachment garner “fuck you” responses in some red-state venues, and a few on-camera interviews spark heated debate. But the bulk of the movie is focused on those whom the peacenik troubadours rouse with their Woodstock-era message of love and nonviolence. Regrettably, Emmy Award–winning ABC News correspondent Mike Cerre, a credited writer and the film’s occasional narrator, gives the naturally biased documentary a seriously misleading sense of objective journalism.

Some of the new songs are genuinely touching, while others are a bit creaky; portraits of Iraq vets and their families deliver undeniable pathos. The core of this self-congratulatory call to arms, though, is a portrait of a geezer protest group still singing sweet songs but desperate for a voice.