Cinema Review: Welcome to Leith | Under the Radar Magazine Under the Radar | Music Blog for the Indie Music Magazine
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Welcome to Leith

Studio: First Run Features
Directed by Christopher K. Walker and Michael Beach Nichols

Sep 08, 2015 By Shawn Hazelett Web Exclusive
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Leith is a town in North Dakota which had a population of exactly 16, per the 2010 census. In 2012, Craig Cobb moves in. The name means nothing to the residents—he’s old and a bit unkempt, but hardly out of place. He keeps to himself, except for occasionally asking residents about vacant plots of land. Once he’s accrued 12 plots, he attends small government functions to make his intentions known: Craig Cobb, a Neo-Nazi and one of America’s most notorious white supremacists, has pegged the tiny town of Leith as a perfect landing spot to democratically establish a government sympathetic to his cause. Whether he has support from all or any of the 16 residents of Leith is irrelevant: hundreds of loyal followers will soon pour into the town in droves.

Welcome to Leith is surprising not because of what happens, but that something like this hasn’t happened before. Cobb might lack eloquence and decency, but his basic understanding of legalese allows him to establish a strong platform while making his neighbors fear for their lives. He explains that his rhetoric has alienated him from the American left and the American right. In Leith he finds all 16 residents of a traditionally red state united against him. But are they against bigotry, or are they indifferent to bigotry but afraid of racial violence? Filmmakers Michael Beach Nichols and Christopher Walker’s neutral observation of Cobb provides a chilling blueprint of what someone even marginally less extreme might accomplish.

Author rating: 6.5/10

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