American Dream

Barbara Kopple's unflinching look at labor troubles is a potent look at organized labor's diminished stature in Ronald Reagan's America. Kopple understands that this story bears only slight resemblance to her previous foray into this territory, Harlan County, U.S.A., where determined coal miners and their strong union squared off against unyielding company bosses over basic issues of safety, job security, and decent wages. In that film, the good guys and the bad guys were clearly delineated; here, the workers, many of them women, gain our sympathy, but their enemy isn't clearly defined. In defying their own union to go on strike, the Hormel meat packers put themselves out on a very long limb. Kopple allows us to see all of this clearly, her cameras always in the right place to catch a key speech or to focus on an eloquent facial expression, as the story heads toward its inevitably sad conclusion. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide