What would happen if they held a national political party convention in New York and nobody talked to the actual delegates? Well, the answer would be that you'd be watching Jed Weintrob's "The F Word."

This movie says that it documents the protests outside the Republican National Convention in Fall 2004. So much for truth in advertising.

Although "Joe Pace" (played with earnest - no, rabid - outrage by Josh Hamilton) does find some Republicans to speak to, he doesn't even pretend to interview them. Hamilton's character just makes the same statements with his questions the leftists made with their obscenities and violence in the streets.

The surreality comes in as left-wing protesters begin hitting New York policemen and Pace is crouching in the foreground saying "things are really getting tense with the cops here." Not the protesters, who are HITTING the cops, but the cops, who are doing their jobs.

Yeah, that's a documentary. 10 points for style, minus 250,000 for objectivity.

Weintrob's clever work with camera angles, cuts and editing show his intention to make propaganda early in the film. "The F Word," more than anything else, is a textbook on how to slant the facts and tell lies with film.

"The F Word" is slick propaganda, a post-modern version of "Triumph of the Will." As such, it merits study because this is the 21st century version of how to lie with a camera and a microphone.

You trot out the calm, aesthetic camera effects and soundtrack when you want your audience to identify with interviewees; then go to black and white when you want to show people with whom you disagree in a bad light, and posterize when you want to confuse your viewers (as with the disjointed-appearing Walt Whitman-quoting guy in Central Park near the middle of the film).

"Strange day... is anybody listening? Is anybody listening?" central character "Joe Pace" intones, as he strolls down Central Park not listening to anything but the sound of his own voice. The intelligent viewer cringes, expecting him to drop trou at some point and pleasure himself to the sound of his own verbal brilliance.

The central character then muses about the importance of people listening to each other when the folks with whom he most obviously sympathizes are talking non-stop to themselves and listening very little, to anyone else.

After half an hour of self-righteous talk therapy in the streets, Pace changes roles, has a bystander interview him, and delivers a nasty sound bite about how horrible it is that the Republican Party DARES to have their convention 'in one of the most liberal cities in America.'

This is the ONE truthful moment in "The F Word," when Jed Weintrob's mask of objectivity slips and he shows us that he'd cheerfully confine anyone who doesn't agree with his politics to a concentration camp. No one's allowed to walk around New York unless they've passed a political litmus test given by Jed Weintrob.

Nobody's too paranoid or obnoxious to be given a sympathetic ear by Jed Weintrob's faux journalist "Joe Pace" as long as they're rabidly leftist.

Even the guy from the "New York Peace and Justice Radio Show" who goes on and on about how the NYPD are computer-analyzing the videotapes they're making of the crowd is presented as a valid voice - the ironic wink from Weintrob's character which would have humanized him AND the left-wing head cases surrounding him is curiously absent from a movie preening itself as witty and profound.

This mockumentary ends with a little rock ballad that helps it earn its title - one of the protesters earnestly shouts just before "The F Word's" end credits that the 1960's comedian Lenny Bruce once said "You take away the right to say F---, then you take away the right to say 'F- - you' to the government."

Now, I'M exercising my Constitutional right to tell the director and cast:

"Guys, you f---ed up.

A documentary should tell BOTH sides of the story. If you don't want to do that, be honest with your audience and call it a 'political commercial' - George Soros is rich enough to air it in every major TV market in America.

Your movie sucks out loud."

This film DOES succeed in comparing and contrasting what real assholes behave like at political protest meetings, compared to the left-wing media's whipping boys, the Tea Party (who are almost uniformly good mannered, pick up their trash AND everyone else's, and don't hit anyone, including the cops).

I can't wait for Weintrob to follow this up with a movie-length ad for Occupy Wall Street/Occupy Oakland/Occupy Any Place but Mom's Basement.

I'm sure that whatever ACORN is calling themselves these days has lied to enough members of the New York teachers' union to be able to hire Weintrob and his production company.

One of the first things that gives this film away as a non-documentary are the well-staged camera angles. The next are the actors showing up portraying "real life" characters (man on the street). Instead of addressing the issues in a realistic manner, the characters spew Liberal talking points and mandates based on misunderstood concepts. And it seems every Conservative interviewed is cut to make them look like lunatics, and every Liberal is viewed as a victimized wise old sage. And the whole idea of the film is that this guy's show is being shut down because of obscenity charges because he uses the "F" word too often. Well, welcome to broadcasting, pal. Nobody in this film, including the broadcaster, realize that the airwaves are owned by the People, and we want obscenity-free airwaves. And the producers either don't know what free speech is and how broadcasting fits into that, or they're totally misrepresenting it all on purpose. Overall, nothing new here, no real analysis of the "F" word and it's impact on free speech or broadcasting. Just a bunch of Liberals whining about how evil and stupid George Bush is and how the FCC is out to censor everyone. What a waste.

"The F Word" was one of at least two films inspired by "Medium Cool" screened at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival, though with even a looser story on top of the 2004 Republican convention in New York City than Haskell Wexler did for Chicago in 1968.

The pretext for covering the demonstrators, both real ones and actors in cameos playing New Yorkers, is Josh Hamilton as a DJ whose low power community radio station is being shut down due to FCC fines for inappropriate language, sort of an update of the old Mike Agranoff folk opus "The Ballad About the Sandman" about a rebellious DJ's last show, but here he takes it to the streets. (The real New Yorkers are quizzical because the fictional station's call letters start with "K" whereas East Coast radio stations start with "W", so I'm not sure why writer/director Jed Weintrob chose that additional artifice.)

Hamilton is very engaging and makes a genuine effort to involve protesters and curious passers-by in substantive debate and conversation as he hikes from downtown to a respite with the oblivious sunbathers in Central Park and back down to the convention site in midtown. He really does try to find Republicans or at least be a devil's advocate in discussions to try to be fair. Demonstrators dressed almost ridiculously theatrically prove to be articulately heartfelt.

He is at some of the same rallies as the filmmakers of "Conventioneers" so I expected the actors from that movie to show up in this one, but Weintrob does let the real thing come through, especially the march of the coffins representing those killed in Iraq, and this film covers a colorful demonstration in front of Fox News headquarters that the other film missed (maybe it happened while the other filmmakers were under arrest).

The closing warnings about the threats to free speech of the Patriot Act are even closer to coming true.

I expect the distribution for this film will be limited to meetings of liberal organizations.