'The Big Buy: Tom DeLay's Stolen Congress'

How Tom DeLay Stole Congress makes a better subtitle—not only because it's sexier, but because it's a more honest representation of a documentary laid out as a procedural in which Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle makes his case for big bidness corrupting Washington. Initially a doc about the journey to indict DeLay and his political action committee (Texans for a Republican Majority) for their successful attempts to redraw the state map without so many Dems clogging up the works, Mark Birnbaum and Jim Schermbeck's movie found its (happy?) ending with DeLay's indictment last fall and resignation this spring. It gives the doc a thriller-noir vibe, despite its abundance of talking heads prone to smirking whenever DeLay's damned or snarling whenever he's defended. The filmmakers capture a battle for the soul of a state and country; we're all damned, no matter our choice of red or blue, unless things change sooner than later, says a movie that will divide like nothing since Michael Moore took the nation's temperature.