SOUTHSIDE WITH YOU REVIEW: “Hagiographic retelling of Obama’s first date likely to disappoint those uninitiated into his cult of personality,” Sonny Bunch writes at the Washington Free Beacon, noting that the film comes complete with a funhouse mirror version of John Galt’s lengthy stemwinder near the end of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged:

Like Galt’s rambling ode to the Makers-Not-Takers Class, Obama’s vision of a world that works best when compromise is prized bears little relation to the world we’ve seen for the last few years.

The rest of the film is less annoyingly, but rarely more artfully, put together. It’s a lot of shot/reverse shot and slow walk-and-talks, with Barack and Michelle’s faces all-too-often draped in shadows. Oddly, the movie often works better when Michelle and Barack are not on screen together, as in the early going when the two of them discuss the evening’s events with their respective families.

There’s an interesting film to be made about Obama’s relation to his father, but director Richard Tanne doesn’t make much use of this fertile territory.

That’s OK. Bill Whittle already made it five years ago, in a video that moves at a much brisker pace than the 84 minute running time of Southside With You: