American Dream

Name: American Dream
Genre: Documentary
Released: March 18, 1992
Duration: 98 min
Rating: 89

1992

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Universal acclaim based on 12 Critic Reviews

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Movie Details & Credits

Janus Film | Release Date: March 18, 1992 | PG-13

Summary: American Dream unflinchingly details the explosive 1985–86 labor strike against Hormel Foods in Austin, Minnesota, a city ripped apart in the tumult. Fed up with dangerous plant conditions and drastic wage cuts, Austin’s Local P-9 went against the advice of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and, with the help ofAmerican Dream unflinchingly details the explosive 1985–86 labor strike against Hormel Foods in Austin, Minnesota, a city ripped apart in the tumult. Fed up with dangerous plant conditions and drastic wage cuts, Austin’s Local P-9 went against the advice of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and, with the help of labor activist Ray Rogers’s campaign to damage the meatpacking giant’s public reputation, conducted a nearly yearlong walkout. But as the strike dragged on, some workers found themselves desperate to make ends meet and ready to cross the picket line, dividing a community already betrayed by a once progressive company and roiled by blockades, riots, and the intervention of the National Guard. Following up her landmark documentary Harlan County USA with another engrossing report from the trenches of working-class America, Kopple poignantly captures the human and political costs of one of the most significant setbacks to organized labor amid the unchecked corporatism of the Reaganomics era.… Expand

Genre(s): Documentary

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 98 min

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Critic Reviews

100

Roger Ebert

This is the kind of movie you watch with horrified fascination, as families lose their incomes and homes, management plays macho hardball, and rights and wrongs grow hopelessly tangled. Read full review

100

John Hartl

This is a heartbreaking movie about pride, ideals, practicality, opportunism and, quite specifically and pointedly, the human consequences of the Reagan administration's support of union-busting. [03 Apr 1992, p.26]

100

Clifford Terry

Along with the studies of individuals, "American Dream" is a sharp study of the future of American unionism. [03 Apr 1992, p.I2]

Bill Cosford

Kopple makes sure you see the logic on all sides, though the most compelling moments are those in which the courage of the holdout strikers beams from the screen -- you don't have to be a union man or woman to grasp the real story here, which is the breakdown of solidarity and the awful repercussions for those who kept the faith. [22 Nov 1991, p.G14]

Hal Hinson

It's one of those rare journalistic documents that by detailing the tragic particulars of an individual struggle manage to define the whole war. Read full review

Kenneth Turan

Seeing working-class Americans standing up for themselves with eloquence and dignity is enough to make you proud, but seeing how futile it finally can be for union members to dream the American dream calls forth a different set of emotions entirely. Read full review

Jay Carr

What makes [Kopple's] impassioned "American Dream" unforgettable is its nonstop empathy with good people worked over by Reaganomics, reminding us that people fighting the good fight don't always win.[27 Mar 1992, p.28]

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