GIVE THIS PIECE A CHANCE.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

A treasure trove for fans of the departed Beatle, a big ol' cheerfest for Republican-haters and a wide-ranging primer on 1960s and '70s social history, ``The U.S. vs. John Lennon'' is nothing if not ambitious.

By any objective measure, though, the documentary is only fully successful when it focuses on its title subject: Lennon's conflicts with the Nixon Administration over his attention-grabbing, anti-war activities, and the government's counter effort to deport him back to Britain.

With the total cooperation of Yoko Ono (mostly a good thing), directors David Leaf and John Scheinfeld present a wealth of sounds and pictures that prove just how unique the couple's guerrilla media campaign was. With a message that was deceptively naive in its fundamental simplicity -- summed up by the song title ``Give Peace a Chance'' -- Lennon and Ono subverted the press' obsessive interest in them with a series of bed-ins, posterings and outrageous interviews. His quick wit and her deer-in-headlights weirdness always drew attention, and while most people probably just viewed their antics as entertaining, the film tries to make the case that Nixon and company saw the couple as a serious threat.

Of course, he thought just about anyone who disagreed with his policies was a mortal enemy. But while Lennon was arguably the second-highest-profile celebrity to protest the Vietnam War (Jane Fonda may not have been quite as well-known, but she was certainly more radical and took the most heat), there were hundreds upon hundreds of others. His activities, and his subsequent fight for his visa, were certainly fascinating and worthy of feature-length examination. But the film might give those unfamiliar with the era the impression that Lennon was more of a leader of the vast movement than he was.

That would only be an impression, though. Leaf and Scheinfeld pretty scrupulously clarify the couple's nonviolent philosophy and suggest that they may have been exploited by more power-playing operatives such as Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. They also muster a who's who of anti-establishment talking heads (Ron Kovic, Angela Davis, Carl Bernstein, Gore Vidal, even an aged and mellowed Bobby Seale, among dozens) for quick glimpses into other aspects of the wide panorama of '60s-era unrest. This stuff's cursory, for the most part, but it does provide some context. And G. Gordon Liddy, pretty much alone, speaks for the otherwise Silent Majority.

Ono gives a generally illuminating running commentary about what the couple really felt during their performance-art triumphs and more paranoid moments. Some of her statements trade verifiable fact for pure speculation, and the film rather weirdly ignores Lennon's early '70s debaucheries (which are covered, by the way, in Scheinfeld's unreleased ``Who Is Harry Nilsson'' documentary).

But if these were Ono's conditions for access to the previously unreleased archive material she controls, the compromise was worth it. Rarely have we seen Lennon so unguarded, impassioned and thoughtful as we do again and again here. The absence of his darker, crazier persona is notable, but the only people likely to feel gypped by ``The U.S. vs. John Lennon'' will be Nixon loyalists.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

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THE U.S. VS. JOHN LENNON - Three stars

(PG-13: language, violence, drug use)

Director: David Leaf and John Scheinfeld.

Running time: 1 hr. 39 min.

Playing: ArcLight, Hollywood; AMC 15, Century City; Monicas, Santa Monica.

In a nutshell: Documentary about the former Beatle's anti-war activities and deportation battle is informative on the title subject but a little superficial and myth-reinforcing about the era's wider issues.

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Photo:

John Lennon and Yoko Ono in a scene from the documentary ``The U.S. vs. John Lennon,'' a documentary focusing on the former Beatle's anti-war activities.