U.S. GOVERNMENT'S WAR ON WEED GOES UP IN SMOKE IN GRASS

Technically, Grass is a documentary, since it depicts real-world issues
without actors' make-believe.

Well, pot-lover Woody Harrelson narrates off-screen. But for all its dates
and data, Grass is more ax-grinding entertainment than objective look at the
highs and lows of marijuana.

Its subject is the U.S. government's demonization of pot and its war against
the weed throughout the 20th century.

This Prohibition-style attack is shown to have cost billions of tax dollars
without eliminating pot use by millions of citizens whose private puffs have
been needlessly criminalized by harsh laws.

Director Ron Mann offers this view with lively impudence and colorful
stylism, mixing vintage movie clips and news footage with bold graphics.

At all times, he stokes the tokers' side with indignation at the unjustness
of it all. But Mann also provides a big, hearty hit of warped bemusement
toward America's history of hysterical anti-pot propaganda.

He sifts through the seeds and stems of that history, as well as the
legislation and social mores that fired the crusade, and adeptly tailors
elements to the times.

For instance, graphics about the '60s pot war are sprinkled across a
knockout evocation of the Beatles' animated Yellow Submarine.

In short, as sobering as the film becomes, Grass is no bum trip.

Rather, it's slanted through a colorful, tuneful prism of countercultural
awareness for sympathetic cognoscenti. If you've ever laughed through a
screening of the absurdly wrongheaded Reefer Madness, this film's for you.

Indeed, for a film bemoaning a Vietnam vet getting a 50-year prison term for
one weed offense, Grass is littered with laughs, albeit often uneasy ones.

Take some TV news footage from the '60s showing a stern California police
chief warning against pot's alleged addictiveness -- all while sucking
furiously on a cigarette.

Mann also shrewdly edits for ironic effect, and he uses a wide array of
pot-related songs, from Cab Calloway's Reefer Man of 1931 to Mark
Mothersbaugh's new Quit Playing Games With God!

Yet for all its amusement, Grass does have a message: The problem isn't
marijuana but marijuana laws.

Mann brandishes government claims in "official truth" bulletins throughout
his film. These somberly warn that marijuana will make you: kill people, go
insane, turn communist or become a heroin addict.

Mann recounts studies showing the opposite -- that pot is harmless --
without raising any valid health concerns.

If grass is benign, it's also unclear why it's targeted by a government that
regulates and profits from far more harmful drugs, such as clearly addictive
alcohol and nicotine.

But Mann has an idea. He sees pot as a scapegoat in an ongoing American war
of values and subcultures, a subject dear to him in his films Twist and
Comic Book Confidential.

Pot is shown as a polarizing point in conflicts between fun-loving Americans
(musicians, hippies, college students) and alarmists who fret that anyone is
having a good time ('30s Prohibitionists, '50s witch hunters, the '60s'
"silent majority").

Though the '70s brought a "brief period of tolerance," the film shows the
war on pot has heated up, with 3 million pot arrests during President
Clinton's terms -- more than under any other president.

No solutions are offered, unless you count Nancy Reagan's admonition to
"just say no." But viewed in the persuasive context of Grass, that's just
another laugh line for an audience primed to say "yes."

Grass

Featuring narration by Woody Harrelson

Now showing: at the Angelika

Rating: R, for drug content

Running time: 80 minutes

Grade: B+