August 20, 2004 | Despite the sporadic box-office success of IMAX spectacles and rock-concert extravaganzas, documentaries almost never attract mainstream moviegoers. Indeed, even art-house devotees tend to respond to nonfiction fare with all the enthusiasm displayed by Superman when he encounters Kryptonite.

In recent months, however, an abnormally large segment of the moviegoing public has been drawn to politically-themed documentary features. Why? Well, perhaps the phenomenon can be attributed to a unique concurrence: Good films and great timing. This is, after all, the first presidential-election year in the wake of 9/11. During a time of such widespread anxiety and uncertainty, it's not altogether surprising that many people -- including, no doubt, many undecided voters -- are unusually venturesome in their search for insights and answers. What is surprising is that, for many folks, that search is leading them to movie theaters, where they are sampling such acclaimed documentaries as Fahrenheit 9/11, Control Room (Jehane Noujaim's fascinating inside look at al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite news network) and, most recently, Bush's Brain.

By turns darkly comical, seriously scary and purposefully incendiary, Bush's Brain may appear to be, depending on your politics, either a shamelessly one-sided assault on a steadfast U.S. President, or a justifiably harsh critique of a politician who personifies the Peter Principle. Ultimately, however, the movie emerges as less a report on President George W. Bush than a study of the Commander in Chief's key strategist: Karl Rove, the savvy and savagely competitive politico who's often accused of viewing elections as full-contact sports.

Working from Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential, the best-selling book by investigative reporters James C. Moore and Wayne Slater, co-directors Michael Paradies Shoob and Joseph Mealey have produced a frankly damning profile of a man who apparently will stop at nothing to advance his clients' campaigns and, of course, his own career.

Bush's Brain charts Rove's rise from his salad days as a Young Republican campus firebrand, through his apprenticeship to political tacticians (including the legendarily ruthless Lee Atwater), to his successful crafting of gubernatorial and presidential campaigns for George Bush. Along the way, Shoob and Mealey argue, Rove developed what presidential scholar Bruce Buchanan describes as a "junkyard dog approach to politics."

According to the filmmakers, Rove initially evidenced his talent for dirty tricks during his high school years, when the "classic nerd" (as he's described by an unadmiring witness) pulled mental fake-outs on opponents in debate tournaments. Subsequently, Bush's Brain claims, Rove upped the ante with even more duplicitous stunts in 1986, when he may have manufactured a scandal to aid Bill Clements in the Texas gubernatorial race, and during the 2000 Republican primaries, when he allegedly helped "independent" activists launch an egregiously nasty smear campaign against Sen. John McCain. (Pro-Bush hate-mongers spread the lie that the daughter McCain and his wife adopted from Mother Teresa's orphanage -- yes, you read that correctly -- was in reality McCain's black "love child.") Since 2001, Rove has worked inside the White House -- in Hillary Clinton's former office, no less -- to advance Bush in particular and the Republican cause in general.

Shoob and Mealey try to pre-empt any criticism about lack of balance by announcing that Rove declined their request for on-camera interviews. Still, even certifiable Bush-haters may be unsettled by the movie's proclivity for overkill. There's an extended segment near the end that offers a heart-tugging account of a U.S. solider who was killed in Iraq. Trouble is, the sequence really adds nothing to the case against Rove, and comes off as shameless emotional manipulation. On the other hand, Bush's Brain mounts a fairly persuasive case to support reports that Rove loomed large in the notorious outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative after her husband, veteran diplomat Joseph Wilson, wrote a New York Timers op-ed piece that disputed claims made by the Bush administration to justify the invasion of Iraq.

All of which makes you wonder what Rove may be doing now, behind the scenes, as Election Day approaches.