Agents of Chaos

Agents of Chaos

There’s not much in Alex Gibney’s “Agents of Chaos,” a documentary about the election hacks, that is surprising on its own terms. And that is by design. The idea that foreign powers meddle with American affairs needn’t be secret or clandestine because it isn’t particularly sophisticated. It can be as simple as Trump saying to the camera in 2016: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you can find the 30,000 emails that are missing.”

It’s all right there. But instead of shock after shock, Mr. Gibney and his team provide satisfying coherence, sharp hindsight and imperative journalism. They show in great detail how Russia interfered with the 2016 election but also insist that it was not only hackers and bots who threw us into discord.

Though made with many collaborators (including co-director Javier Alberto Botero in Part 2), “Agents of Chaos” is deeply first-person for Mr. Gibney, who wrestles with this country’s corrupted trust in voting and everything else. He once made an entire documentary about how Lance Armstrong lied to him (“The Armstrong Lie”), all so he could try to figure out why: This is a filmmaker who understands that winning cheaters still own history. “Agents of Chaos” belongs to this same lineage; among our best documentarians wrestling with the ideological susceptibility of a nation wondering how Russia used our chaos against us.

Part 1 (which airs Tuesday; Part 2 airs Wednesday) starts with recent-history troll farms, going back to 2013. Talking to people like Camille François who investigated these operations or worked alongside them, Mr. Gibney paints a picture of a disruption service one very effective at sowing discord in Ukraine beginning in 2014. Doctored images, fake news, memes accusing the enemy of Naziism: They tried every coordinated-troll attack they could think of, and it all came from an office building in Russia.

“Agents of Chaos” covers this history at length, including which Russian figureheads supported the programs. And with its many examples of fake online accounts, it illustrates how these different efforts played upon a vulnerable country that was already deeply divided. In “Agents of Chaos,” we are introduced to a new adversary: fake profiles that churn out memes and inexplicably gain followers. If “Agents of Chaos” can make us think twice about reposting something because we suspect it’s from a bot, then it will have done something.

After a lengthy section on “Trolls,” Part 1 moves into “Hacks,” an informative section that breaks down Russia’s different hacking groups (like Fancy Bear), and what they did to America in 2016. We learn how Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta had his email hacked (fake password request), but more than the specific hows or whos, this act’s target was trust America’s trust by playing on divisions that were already there.

Right-wing people were targeted; so were liberals. Fake groups abounded on both sides hoping only to sow deeper suspicion between them. Paired with fake social media accounts, this hacking was full-court press to inspire people not to vote; lose faith in the Democratic candidate.

There is much more and it is treated with sensitivity throughout.

That isn’t a term the conversation has often been blessed with, as seen in Robert De Niro’s pathetically worshipful portrayal of Robert Mueller on “Saturday Night Live,” an act of projection. But especially in part two, Gibney’s documentary deals with such things as the Mueller Report or the Steele Dossier in an honest way, making them bigger for some reason, smaller for others.

The same goes for how the documentary tries to avoid using the word collusion, and says that what really happened when Trump campaign officials like Paul Manafort met with Russians was more like “seduction,” and we’ll never have a document that proves both parties wanted to conspire because people don’t conspire that way.

Instead it gives us a timeline full of power moves that look suspicious in hindsight, of Wikileaks drops timed with other things happening, or of friendships between Trump figures and shady Russians. It’s an excellent example of a documentary connecting the dots on a story you might only know in pieces, and will only ever learn about as related by experts like former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe who speak clearly about these known events or patterns they’ve seen before with their own eyes where someone acted kind of mob-like. No one is accused directly but people are connected horrifyingly nonetheless.

Throughout “Agents of Chaos” stays level-headed: it’s not about blaming one side more than another but showing failure all around so we can do better next time. And it is this same sense that makes Gibney always focusing on person to person interaction at the center of his mad epics so important when it comes to talking about people who knew something was wrong but didn’t act; or those who affected/effectuated change during elections domestically like McCabe saying how he knows FBI swayed poll numbers days before November 9th 2016; no easy answers/big mistakes were made/lead to later problems thanks in part to inaction from election officials and even the Obama administration. Maybe we were on our way already.

It’s a great Gibney-ism. “Agents of Chaos” shows us shadowy troll farms like he did with Scientology for “Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief,” it dots and connects a lot of people and crazy things happening like “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room”. And sometimes it can be really in your face stuff, befitting the madness; the doc is as brash as the arena rock version of Rhapsody in Blue that bookends each episode.

And sometimes he chimes in to help guide us, with a voiceover that’s relatable (he too doesn’t know why Trump keeps playing “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” at his rallies) or corny (Gibney loves him some From Russia with Love).

But most of all it reminded me of another director this is basically Gibney’s Fahrenheit 9/11, an everything-is-at-stake warning shot across election year’s bow. It wants you to know, and hopes you’ll come out more prepared for what’s about to happen weeks from now. Your vote deserves it.

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