This Place Rules: Review

"… Angry, sensitive, tensely felt, and the dirtiest of all dirty words: promising”

The first time I watched All Gas No Brakes, Andrew Callaghan and his crew attended the Midwest FurFest. It was mind-bending and hilarious. I was immediately hooked.

Andrew Callaghan’s work as a gonzo journalist as either All Gas No Brakes or Channel 5 has always been a treat to watch. Callahagn looks like someone you went to high school with who was simply a good guy and a good hang. The interview subjects often start as wild or absurd, but can take an emotional turn the more you learn about them. His interviews exude a kind of empathy that feels alien on an internet that loves nothing more but to dunk on unsuspecting (and occasionally deserving) people. As a fan, watching his star rise, trip, then rise again, made it feel like he was just another young person trying to find his way; we were all rooting for him. Seeing his work on HBO feels like success could not happen to a nicer, more deserving dude. 

This Place Rules is the story of the January 6th Capitol Riot, as told from Callaghan’s perspective as a road-warrior journalist. It starts with a Florida-Man version of Creator Clash between Instagram creators Gum Gang and Joker Gang (their original accounts appear to have been deleted). It’s the kind of absolute shit-show we’ve come to expect from Callaghan, who acts as the referee for their backwater grudge match. When Joker knocks Gum out, Gum appears stoic: “It’s a loss. Took the L and moved on. I mean, you don’t see me crying about it like everyone else did after the [election].” The whole scene is funny, strange, and a little unsettling, but above all it feels quintessentially Channel 5.

This sets the tone for the rest of the film as we watch Callaghan make his hero’s journey across the US. We’re introduced to characters that feel familiar to anyone who’s watched one of his clips before: Q-Pilled Protestors, Annoying Liberals, ANTIFA, Foreskin Activists, “Show-Me-Your-Butthole” Types; the gang’s all here. One of the funnier scenes is a woman who claims to have been a substitute teacher “in the hood”, saying God spoke to her and told her to rap for her students because it wouldn’t be a Channel 5 video without someone rapping in it. These are the kind of on-the-street interviews that make Callaghan’s work second to none. They feel scrappy and raw, with the subjects given the time and space to simply say their piece. Eventually, despite the absurdity (or perhaps because of it) hints of something ominous begin to creep in as the 2020 cultural climate nears its boiling point.

The film centres around Callaghan’s interviews with more provocative and controversial figures like Alex Jones and former Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio. There’s a much talked-about scene of him Alex Jones drinking Jameson and lifting weights, but for all its hype, it’s under a minute. It’s no secret that Tarrio and Jones are grifters looking to sell merchandise that cashes in on the political divide, but Callaghan’s not willing to lay the blame for division entirely at their feet. He wants to talk about how de-platforming these figures only pushed their followers into deeper echo chambers: “Right into the hands of the profiteers”. In a sense, the film is calling out mainstream media for creating a climate of fear and division in order to exploit people’s attention for profit; with Liberal media abandoning an audience that was dismissed as evil and immoral. Callaghan tries to show that so many of those who follow QAnon or InfoWars are just as much victims of misinformation as they are spreaders of it. A reminder that even within culture war, it’s all too easy for one side to dehumanize the other. The film spends its time showing the results of this as opposed to discussing it, which allows us to feel empathy for those who have fallen down the far-right rabbit hole. You can’t help but feel sorry for the QAnon family he interviews after they’re forced to realize they’d all been duped. True to form, Callaghan puts a human face to someone we usually find ourselves dismissing as “some random guy on the internet”.

That said, here’s where I’m going to make a couple criticisms.

Watching This Place Rules is like watching a long Channel 5 segment, which comes with its own set of problems. Callaghan introduces the film in his trademark suit as he sits in a directors chair giving the movie an air of aloof-professionalism. He’s serious, but also: “Dude, chill”. Stylistically, the amateur aesthetic of Channel 5’s videos make them feel endearing when watched online, but can feel out-of-place in a larger production. The chaotic on-the-street interviews with crash zooms and awkward cuts are right at home in a YouTube video, but in a feature-length film (it’s about 83 minutes) they make the whole thing feel unpolished and rushed. This was likely the intention, although I found myself thinking of how something like How To With John Wilson (a sort of “stylistic cousin” to Channel 5) doesn’t do this. It’s a movie about a serious subject, made by a crew that seems to refuse to take themselves too seriously: One foot in the door, one foot out.

It’s also interesting to see this documentary come out now, when so much has already been made of the events leading to the Capitol Riot. The riot itself was thoroughly documented by both news media and its participants, so watching them again two years after they happened can feel like going over tired territory. It’s not totally clear what This Place Rules, has to say that hasn’t been said already (even if it’s already been said by Callaghan). Q: Into the Storm, is an excellent documentary series that covers the same period of time from the perspective of (allegedly) Q himself. Documentaries like White Noise, have covered how far right groups have grown and expanded in the US during the Trump presidency. TFW No GF and Feels Good Man both discuss the rise of incel culture, albeit from two different perspectives. Rules was a great watch, but doesn’t seem to offer anything beyond what fans have already seen on Channel 5. Perhaps that’s just me being nitpicky.

With Callaghan currently on a press tour, it’s going to be interesting to see the response mainstream media will have to This Place Rules. In a recent interview with CNN, Callaghan accused them of contributing to the political divide, and was met with an icy response by Don Lemon. Yesterday, in a clip Callaghan posted to his instagram, he was asked by NPR how he thought the Sandy Hook parents would feel about him featuring (and drinking with) Alex Jones in the film. It was an odd, “gotcha” question that Andrew himself referred to as a “neolib setup”, but it feels like a harbinger of things to come. Given that Callahagn breaks certain culture-war rules for Liberals (specifically “not denouncing Alex Jones”) and can also portray them in a less-than-flattering light (a woman insulting Trump at the beginning of the film makes for a funny and painful watch), it’s not difficult for his work to be read by some as pandering to the right despite his leftist political affiliations. While it’s still not clear what kind of cultural impact Rules will end up having, it may be the thing that causes older liberals to say to themselves: “No, it’s the children who are wrong”.

There is also a bit of irony in Callaghan’s work in that he’s frustrated with all the talking heads and opinion pieces on cable news, but alternative sources of media like streamers or podcasters do the same thing, albeit from a different perspective. The division Callaghan wants to talk about isn’t the traditional “Left v. Right” but more “haves v. have-nots/anti-establishment”. Given that his work is critical of mainstream media, it has the potential to fall on either side of the cultural divide, which can come with its own set of problems. I’m not suggesting this will happen to Callaghan, but how many people predicted journalists like Glenn Greenwald or Matt Taibbi would become fodder for Fox News? (Probably more than I think)

All said and done, Callaghan is still terrifyingly young (he’s 25) with a great future ahead of him and will no doubt continue to shine a kind, empathic light on the margins of society. This Place Rules may be a bit of a rocky start to documentary filmmaking, but the good news is, Callaghan’s only getting better.

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This Place Rules is streaming now. I watched it on Crave.