2freensel I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Gerardrobertson61 Found this series on Netflix and was totally fascinated by it, especially seeing I am an Australian where we never had any prohibition laws. To me, Prohibition was something that happened in the 20's and 30's, and included gangsters, mobsters and cops shooting each other and stealing their liquor, however the characters that lead up to Prohibition in the late 1800's and early 1900's are fascinating. I found this series to be another great documentary and I recommend it, 8/10

KidNorway Prohibition took place in the early 1900's, was unpopular, and was repealed. That was the extent of my knowledge on prohibition. Ken Burns proved that such a big part of our country's history is worth taking a closer look at.The storytelling is excellent, with interviews of and narration by folks you'll likely recognize. The archival footage is eye-opening and heartbreaking. The comic relief is perfectly timed, and the facts presented here linger on the mind long after the TV is off.Personal preference will dictate whether the film's length outlasts its charm. I usually like things short and sweet, but I couldn't hold myself to a single episode in one sitting. However, at 5 hours it'll probably wear down the patience of some viewers.The only other downside I can think of is that some points are overly expounded upon, while other enticing tidbits will be mentioned briefly but not fully exemplified. I almost doubled the length of one episode by continuously pausing and googling something for more clarification.Of course, that could've been Ken's plan all along.

barleysinger I really liked the fact that this documentary went deeply into the history of what led up to prohibition; the social normality of drinking alcohol and the slow change from 'temperance' (moderation not drunkenness) over to full abstinence, etc. The push toward alcohol prohibition was interrupted repeatedly, it was melded into other political issues like women's right to vote, and fused into the new version of US Christianity that had swept the nation. It was also part and parcel with deep racism and xenophobia - often aimed against the very migrants it was *claimed* to be there to help. Prohibition was supposed to stop poverty and make life safer, but it did the opposite - it destroyed the 5th largest industry in the nation (and other reliant jobs) creating mass unemployment at a time with no government unemployment system. It created organized crime (which is tied now to drug prohibition).The view of the local bar as being a center of commerce and community for the lower classes (who did not have private clubs) was not the view held by those who saw alcohol as the central evil of their era. But then they wanted easy answers... not accurate ones.People in that era were told (in the first mass political propaganda machine ever) that alcohol was the cause of all their social ills; that domestic violence, prostitution, poverty, gambling, and many other things were all due to the bottle. They were told that with no alcohol people could be made 'better' & society would be better. All would be well. Somehow few people questioned the information they were getting, but then they had not experienced that sort of propaganda before.There was a good discussion of the long era in which the prohibitionist movement grew, and of the sudden increase in alcohol production, and the result of the rise of groups that were against drinking or let alcoholics help each other stay sober.THE MISSING PART? However there was no discussion at all of *why* so many people in that era drank to excess, or why any substance (or other obsession) becomes the center of self destructive behavior. After all,you can't sell anything to people - including excessive amounts of alcohol, to people who won't swallow it down.The *why* of all substance misuse is nearly always tied into feelings of emotional pain and the desire to escape them; hopelessness, despair, trauma, and a desire to have a mental 'vacation'. Looking at things in this way is less popular than anger. It doesn't let people have easy answers to complicated problems, or give them people to vilify. It fails to let them 'off the hook' when it comes to looking at their entire way of life. Anything can be used this way, including ideologies and theologies.The fact is that nearly all the people in that era lived in abject poverty & had no real rights. There were no government enforced rights at all : no workers rights, no right to equal housing, there were no unemployment benefits or disability system. Child labor was common and sweat shops were normal. Jobs paid so little that you could starve to death while fully employed, working 12 hour days. People were worked extreme hours, in dangerous conditions, and could be fired for anything (including being too sick to come to work, having a kid to care for, or for refusing to do a thing that was wrong or even illegal). You could be fired for not going to the employers church (see the job requirements 'Dwight L Moody' met, when hired by a relative).Empires of money were made by people willing to do 'all the wrong things' for cash. The employees & employers knew this; and that all jobs were like that so you could not quit a job & find better treatment. Nobody was willing to say no to greed or on the job cruelty. After all, the entire prohibition movement came into being in a US shaped by men like Daniel Webster (who believed the poor were poor because of their inferiority, their race, their original nationality, and that the US should be CLASSIEST and keep voting a privilege of the wealthy... education too). It was not a good thing to be poor in a world shaped by folks like Webster.Read "The Jungle" for a look at US migrant life in the early 20th century. The migrants in it found the US was not the new wonderful world they had hoped for. It was terrible, dirty, and filled with poverty. They rapidly discovered that nobody could be trusted in the cities, that most US city people were con artists who preyed on each other constantly and had no ethics; that jobs were hard to get & easy to lose; that their family members died of poverty (the cold, starvation, lack of medical care) surrounded by people who COULD help but would not. At the end of the work day (or in despair over no work) many chose to disappear into a bottle. Knowing what they faced at home, men stayed at the bars, fearing going back to the pressures of their impoverished family. Yet nobody was campaigning to STOP the conditions that sent people off to drink in order to cope.It was easier to blame booze and ban it (and more satisfying as you could feel superior) than it was to go after the CAUSES of mass alcoholism and address them, by reeling in the abuse of power and addressing poverty.It still is easier to use the blunt instrument of the law to deal with the societal results of greed and cruelty, and it is still done everyday.

artpf Throughout American history, heavy alcohol consumption has been a pervasive part of its national social character. However in the 1800s, a growing Temperance movement arose determined to oppose the destructive habit by any means necessary. This series tells the story of this crusade until it achieved its ultimate goal of passing the 18th Amendment of the US Constitution which imposed prohibition. After that victory, the series covers this social reform's disastrous unintended consequences that encouraged clandestine drinking and organized crime while undermining civil liberties and society's respect for the law in ways that still reverberate today.This series couldn't be more biased or more hateful if it tried.It's basic premise is that Americans are a bunch of drunks when meanwhile Europeans drink far more than we do!Take a trip to England and see whose stumbling out of the pubs pissing on the streets and barfing in the alleys before dusk! The French have the highest cirrhosis of liver on the planet and in Italy a 6 year old can buy a bottle of wine. In Eastern Europe, vodka is served 24/7. In Japan it's accepted for a successful businessman to wander the streets falling down drunk. But somehow, once again, Americans are the bad ones.It's the worst pseudo documentary I have ever seen.How does money get raised for this kind of propaganda?