Product Details

• #87615 in VHS
• Released on: 1999-09-28
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Formats: Color, NTSC
• Number of tapes: 1

Amazon.com
Professional-wrestler-turned-politician Jesse Ventura, who stunned the nation with his upset victory to become governor of Minnesota, recounts his political miracle in this video, which mixes interviews with Ventura and footage shot on the campaign trail. Essentially Ventura's own story (he has officially licensed this video), Citizen Jesse isn't a balanced look at his upstart political career but an entertaining look at how political professionals were shocked and slammed by a character so eccentric he could use his own action figure in low-budget TV commercials. Ventura's wife appears in interview segments in which she frankly expresses the misgivings she had about her husband's political career, and some of the campaign footage makes you wonder how serious Ventura himself could have been: for instance, while marching in a small-town parade is standard fare for political candidates, only Jesse Ventura would march in a tank top, pausing to flex his muscles to the screams of the crowd. Yet in some scenes, such as when he stands up to union protestors at a campaign stop, his gift for plain talk in an emotional situation does much to show how voters would take his message to heart. --Robert J. McNamara