An Unreasonable Man.

The other documentary, An Unreasonable Man, completes an unlikely movie trilogy that includes Fahrenheit 9/11 and An Inconvenient Truth. This time the spotlight is on Ralph Nader, that most divisive of spoilers who's often blamed for throwing the presidential election to George W. Bush in 2000. The film does Nader a service by reminding us of his early, necessary activism--especially against General Motors, which hired shady types to tail him and, if possible, seduce him (then, as now, Nader's speculated-upon sexuality is unclear). Eventually, though, Nader's commitment to an ideal leads to an untenable situation that finds him disavowing former friends and running for office to many liberals' chagrin. "I don't want to have a climate in the country," Nader says early on, "where one has to have an ascetic existence and steely determination in order to speak truthfully." Sadly, Nader seems to have found no other way.