ACORN and the Firestorm

The doc's poignant heart is in observing how ACORN's most dedicated members have pushed to continue doing good after it was forced to close its doors.

Although the documentary makes clear how some accusations proved false or overblown, perhaps its biggest flaw is that it’s too eager to hand-wave any actual mistakes that Acorn made.

Reuben Atlas and Sam Pollard’s convincing but unfocused documentary “ACORN and the Firestorm” firmly contextualizes the group’s targeted debasement and eventual downfall as a landmark event of this modern political moment — not the epilogue of the previous era, but rather the prologue of the current one.

ACORN and the Firestorm fumbles with the media story, offering cable-news talking heads in montage but not digging deeply into how the story spread — or why elected Democrats believed they had to shut Acorn down. That sense of fumbling shapes the film.