The Queen Mother of all dirty words (as it was once described by Jean Shepherd) is examined through all its linguistic, sociological, legal, and ethical implications in this documentary. Filmmaker Steven Anderson interviews dozens of people about the history and function of "the F word," including language historians who have a hard time nailing down its origin, writers (including Hunter S. Thompson and Ben Bradlee) who talk about its role in literature and press freedom, comedians (among them
Drew Carey, Janeane Garofalo, and Billy Connolly) who ponder its frequent presence in hipster humor, pop musicians (such as Ice-T, Pat Boone, and Alanis Morissette) who offer their theories about its role in contemporary culture, and social critics (including Michael Medved and Dennis Prager) who believe its currency is taking America into a dangerous place. F*ck also includes footage of famous figures caught using the word unexpectedly and animated sequences by Bill Plympton. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
If anything, the most vivid impression created by the movie is how much fun the word's use can potentially be and how its power is inevitably emboldened in direct proportion to the forces of decency lined up against it.
As well as being humdrum, this is past its sell-by date: the film is a product of the Bush years, with the liberals making all the old complaints about Dubya's encouragement of cultural puritanism.
Despite its flaws, Fuck does manage to leave you energised and determined to fight to the death to defend freedom of speech - or at least sit back and fire off a few swear words of your own in celebration. Shit, piss, fuck, etc...
The insight-neutral scrag ends of what feels like ten decent documentaries on censorship, semantics, social policy and broadcasting coalesce in this painfully self-satisfied and poorly made 'shock-doc'.
An example of the very worst kind of documentary film-making. The picture contains no insight, no research and no etymological answers. It is simply a string of choppily edited interviews with comedians, porn actors and the morally outraged.
Entertaining documentary with an admirable array of talking heads, though it doesn't dig nearly as deep as you'd expect and contains some baffling omissions.
This film is probably not going to change anyone's view about this particular word, but it is an interesting, informative, and often entertaining take on the subject.
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