This is a behind-the-scene of Barack Obama's Presidential campaign. It starts with him watching the mid-term election in 2006. He would announce a few months later. This follows the campaign all the way to the night of victory.This is in the same vein as the great documentary "The War Room (1993)" which followed Bill Clinton's campaign. It is inferior in a couple of ways. It's been done before. It's now more or less a historical document at this point. I would have loved one for W. The other problem is the limited drama.This one follows more with people further down the food chain. "The War Room" followed James Carville and George Stephanopoulos. They were great characters near the top of the food chain. This one is a lot of (to quote Palin) Hopey Changey thing. It follows organizer Ronnie Cho who is representative of the ground troops. The upper level stuff is never quite so compelling. It feels like we're just outside of the war room. It might also be Obama's calm persona injecting into his campaign or that everybody is tapping away at their Blackberry. This is a nice recount of the campaign. I can't help but wonder if Hilary's campaign has a more compelling behind-the-scenes movie.

Regardless of your political views, this documentary is awesome. Being a moderate in today's politics seems eerie. It seems as if you have to be part of the "fringe" or you don't "fit in". Anyway, The film takes you on a roller coaster ride of ups and downs of the campaign (mostly up).I wasn't a particular fan of the President but still voted for him because he seemed to convey the hope that we can come together after the previous disastrous administration. Very little of this mans charisma comes through in the film though,which was a disappointment.Overall the film is entertaining for anyone interested in politics or the President himself. He could be one of our greatest if given the chance and the hard right will work with him.I would have rated this film higher,albeit not enough about the Presidents essence and demeanor.

The HBO documentary was broadcast here one day after its US premiere and one year after Election Day which brought Obama to the White House. There was certainly inspiration and and an amount of risk taken by HBO to put a whole team to follow Obama's campaign starting with 2006, as his election was not really in the cards from the start. This is maybe one of the reasons for which I expected more from this documentary than I really received.We do see the team since it's start, and actually we see more of the team then of Obama himself. We are introduced to some of the key participants in the campaign, all true believers, all deeply involved not only at the political and professional but also at the personal level. We see the crowds gathering, especially on the Democratic side, and on Obama's side within the Democratic Party - and the film does not try to keep any balance on reporting and does not show too many articulated opinions of the other camps. The arguments are most of the time emotional rather than rational, rhetoric rather than analytical. It's the story of the campaign, well told and well filmed, in chronological order - it happens under our eyes, and it is assumed that we know why it happened. Maybe in the future the documentary value of this story telling will increase, right now it's too new for us to have forgotten it already. There are no big surprises, no real scoops for people trying to learn more about the secret of Obama's victory. I expected some more information about the well conducted campaign on the Internet, or about the efficient money raising which was a key part in the success - there is no mention about this. There is also almost no mention about the international dimension of the campaign, or how the big policies issues were answered by Obama and what differentiated it relative to the other candidates on the Democratic and Republican side, leading eventually to victory. The film addresses more the emotional side, whoever looks for extended information or deep analysis will not find it here. The best moments are those in which we get a glimpse of the human dimension of the Obama family, or of the people who were involved in the campaign. For some viewers this may be enough, for other not. Depending upon the expectations 'By the People' can be satisfying or disappointing to the same extent.

Like most HBO documentaries it is well structured, paced perfectly and visually appealing. I like documentaries anyway and I realize they all have a bias or an agenda and this is no different. Clearly the film puts Obama's amazing campaign in the best possible light. Good news is shown in real time with reactions from the candidate himself while bad news (Ayers, Wright, previous races and experience, etc) is shown in retrospect or downplayed. What makes the film good is also its Achilles Heel. Following the candidate from just before he decides to run, we see the people around Obama more than the candidate himself and get a glimpse of the times in which his campaign and subsequent election take place. Both effectively place the campaign in context. People were showing up in record numbers and hadn't been this excited about a candidate probably since JFK. The film effectively captures the magic (and hysteria) that infected Democrats and influenced enough independents.I am no fan of the man as president, so I also have a post-disposition (as opposed to a predisposition), so it was hard to warm up to the man to begin with. But the doc doesn't reveal much more about him than we already know. He's calm, cool, collected, has a nice and attractive family, and speaks well...exactly how he's described today. By concentrating on his advisors and fans we get insight into the effect his election had on people but not no particular insight on how he deals with his staff, what he really cares about, or, with little exception, how he acts under adversity. One point that stands out is his surprising defeat in NH which he maintains (how long afterward we don't know)was a good thing. Ever the spin master, we see him only as the consummate politician without much of a hint of how much the setback bothered him as a person.Perhaps, after his administration is walking out the door of its last term, the makers will give us more of a taste of who the "real" Barack Obama is with the extra footage in a second installment. For now we will settle for a little of "behind the scenes" of the most electric campaign of the last 30 years.