Watchdog

Bigger, Stronger, Faster, 106 minutes.

This unusual film by Christopher Bell looks at the steroid era through the prism of both his own family - with two brothers who are users - and larger American culture.

The refreshing twist is that he does not go into the project with the knee-jerk, mainstream assumption that steroids are bad - or at least that they are any worse than innumerable other American vices.

The style is similar to that of Michael Moore, especially his climactic confrontation with the governor of California.

Bell scores off-beat interviews with assorted figures from Ben Johnson to Carl Lewis to Floyd Landis to an uncomfortably frank talk with Don Hooton, who believes his son, Taylor, took his own life as a direct result of his steroid use.

The comic highlight is an interview with Bell's congressman, Henry Waxman. For a guy who oversaw the recent Roger Clemens hearing, he displays an alarming, embarrassing lack of knowledge about the subject and others, including the legal drinking age.