Parents' Guide to Totally Under Control

As he has done so effectively many times before, Gibney takes a hard, clear, coolheaded look at government corruption -- and, in this case, shocking ineptitude and negligence, too. Totally Under Control -- the title taken from a misleading statement made by President Donald Trump -- is a fine work of journalism, even going behind the scenes a little to show how the movie itself was made safely during the pandemic. We can see layers of plastic surrounding special cameras, designed so that interviewees can speak, safely and unmasked, directly to the camera -- and to viewers.

Speaking with more than a dozen professionals, Gibney and co-directors Ophelia Harutyunyan and Suzanne Hillinger piece together a U.S. timeline and explain it with more clarity than most day-to-day news reports have had time for. For example, the CDC's faulty test kits are analyzed more fully, and it turns out that the error could have been easily corrected if the emergency had been taken more seriously. But Totally Under Control also looks at the Trump administration, whose virus task force consisted mainly of people with no expertise on the subject ("loyalty was more important than knowledge") and who consistently downplayed the virus's danger. All in all, while the documentary may get dated very quickly, it serves as an important testament for the moment in which it arrives.