"The 60's" is a well-meaning but very flawed miniseries about all of the major events of that decade shown in the viewpoints of several fictitious yet stereotyped characters: the tortured Viet Nam veteran, the rebellious hippy, the idealist pacifist, the overzealous radical, the bitter son of a black minister who becomes a bitter Black Panther, and of course, try to even out all of the leftist characters with right conservatives (mainly Mr. O'Herlihy).
This show tries to go into too many directions at once, all to the beat of the great music of course. The music is the high point of the show, as it was the high point of the time itself. What results is a very frustrating look at good intentions that really went nowhere, and ended up creating more problems than were solved.
Having sort-of lived in this period (I was born in '67), I can't help but see this whole era in a cynical light. I am all for protesting immoral warfare and I believe that we Americans were lied to about everything having to do with the Cold War and Viet Nam. However, being that it was upper-class kids doing all the marches and protesting while blue-collar kids were drafted and forced to go into battle, I see and always have seen nothing more than a group of over priveledged spoiled brats trying to get attention rather than sincerely having a cause.
In spite of my opinion being the opposite of Mary's in this matter, I did admire Kenny Klein's spunk. And Jeremy Sisto gives a brilliant performance. I truly enjoy watching him. We differ on whether he (the character, not Sisto) is sincere or just very charismatic.
Jerry O'Connell (he looks so anorexic since his days in "Stand By Me"!!) is very good in his role as the emotionally paralyzed veteran who finds solace in the proverbial bottle and grows his hair out until he looks like David Crosby. I wanted to see more of him than just sitting in bushes shooting at unseen "Charlies", and his role is quite small in spite of him receiving high billing.
Other good performances are those of Charles Dutton ("Alien3") as the black preacher who ends up being killed during the riots in Watts in '65, and Leonard Roberts ("Heroes") as his son. But I am very bothered, as is Mary, that after part 2 started, the focus stayed primarily on the boring white family instead of following young Emmett through his journey into the Black Panthers and beyond. Like Mary, I didn't care a snit about the hippy daughter or the middle brother. Whenever the focus was on them (and it was a lot) I wanted to fall asleep. Sisto is much more interesting, as is Roberts, O'Connell and Dutton. Jordana Brewster ("D.E.B.S") as the girlfriend didn't impress me much. I think C3PO has more facial expressions than she. They could have found dozens of actresses who could outact her.
The costumes and production design were authentic and fun, and again, the music rocked. But as far as the story, it is a real disappointment. The end was asinine. That's the nicest word I can scrape up. I could only recommend it for those actors who gave good performances and the music.
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The 60s