American Standoff inevitably draws comparison with Harlan County, USA and American Dream, filmmaker Barbara Kopple's two Oscar-winning documentaries on labor strife. Though Kopple directed the first two films and "only" produced this one, the three do form a trilogy. Harlan County, released in the mid-'70s, when the labor movement was beginning to lose momentum, harkens back to the days when the showdowns between labor and management were viewed as a struggle by overworked and underpaid workers to gain some measure of dignity and fair compensation. Its united union representing blue-collar workers in a dangerous occupation (coal mining) squares off against a greedy company with few scruples about exploiting its employees. In American Dream, released in 1990, many of the workers are women and the setting is a meat-packing plant, but the lines of conflict are blurred, as the workers find themselves fighting their company and union, which is fractured over a strike. American Standoff recognizes two facts at the very outset: that the labor movement in America has been in steep decline for decades, and that the union which is the focus here, the Teamsters, is the most potent symbol of that decline. The film tells two parallel stories: the strike by truck drivers for the Overnite firm and the challenge to the Teamsters leadership of James P. Hoffa, son of legendary Teamsters' boss James R. Hoffa. The film does better with the first story line, using the travails of three drivers -- Joe Reeves, Hope Hampleman, and Mike Ferriolo -- to illustrate the determination of hardcore union members to stand up to their company. "This not a strike about paychecks; this is a strike about unions," says one worker, suggesting that the American workplace has reverted back to a time when unions were first trying to get established. The filmmakers are clearly in sympathy with the workers and their union, even as they acknowledge the Teamsters' unsavory past. Allowed to stand is the younger Hoffa's assertion that his father was murdered by the Mob because he wanted to clean up the union. But not enough screen time is devoted to the splinter group, Teamsters for a Democratic Union, so it's difficult to judge if their attacks on Hoffa's leadership have any validity. If the film falls a bit short of effectively covering all its bases, it's still a powerful portrait of the lives of working men and women caught between the appealing ideals of a union and the harsh realities of a cutthroat business world which has divided and in many ways conquered the labor force.
by Tom Wiener
review
