Hick Town

USA, 2009, 132 Minute Running Time
World Premiere
Genre/Subjects: Colorado, Documentary, Political
Language: English

This intimate look at Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper may not exactly qualify as a home movie, but it’s about as close as you’ll get on the silver screen. That’s because the filmmaker is Hizzoner’s cousin George Hickenlooper – an accomplished documentarian who secured extraordinary access to the man Denverites call “Hick” just as the city was gearing up to host the 2008 Democratic National Convention. (His coproducer is R. J. Cutler of War Room fame.)

In 2006, Time named Hickenlooper one of the nation’s Five Most Popular and Progressive Mayors. What we see here is a human dynamo going full-tilt in a real-life version of Spin City – a man trying to keep his city together in the face of enormously high day-to-day pressure. He jokes around with predecessor Federico Peña and US Senator Ken Salazar. He pulls off a trademark line in the company of then-presidential candidate Barack Obama: “I’m the other skinny Democrat with a funny last name.” He urges Denver to get out the vote. He parries with Governor Bill Ritter. He even skydives out of an airplane.

Indeed, Hickenlooper the filmmaker (who has also directed, among other things, Hearts of Darkness [SDFF 14], about the nightmarish making of Apocalypse Now) is convinced that Hickenlooper the mayor has got the goods to be the subject of a marketable TV reality series. Whether the idea flies or not is anyone’s guess, but there’s no going back now. “In a moment of weakness,” the mayor reveals, “I let my cousin George – one of the greatest documentary filmmakers in America – cajole me into letting him film … the life of a big-city mayor. It’s more about perspiration than aspiration.”

DIRECTOR: George Hickenlooper
Producer: R.J. Cutler, Donald Zuckerman, Jeff Chianakas
Cinematographer: George Hickenlooper, John Mans, H. Ben Morgenthau
Principal Cast: John Hickenlooper, Michael Bloomberg, Cory Booker, Tom Brokaw, Pat Buchanan