'The Truth vs. Alex Jones' will anger you- and it should

The Max documentary goes in-depth about how the loathsome conspiracist defamed the Sandy Hook families- and was dealt a massive comeuppance in court

Except for the 9/11 attacks, I don’t know that any news story in my lifetime has affected me the way the Sandy Hook school shooting did in December of 2012. I was a new father with a two-year-old and a newborn, and the violent deaths of 20 6- and 7-year-olds just about broke me- and that was before I learned that one of the kids who died that day, Noah Pozner, had the same first name as my older son.

Also, starting that day, the vile conspiracy theorist Alex Jones started spinning the vicious lie that the massacre had been staged as part of a plot to take away Americans’ guns. The lies continued in the ensuing months and years, including accusations that the kids had never actually existed, with Jones’ lowlife supporters going so far as to harass the grieving family members. That the part about the government taking everyone’s guns never actually happened never seemed to slow down the tinfoil-hat nonsense.

It was, in short, one of the most odious acts by a public figure in U.S. history. It led to a series of defamation suits by the Sandy Hook families, which led to total defamation verdicts against Jones in the hundreds of millions of dollars. It is a tiny fraction of what he deserves, although at least it’s a start.

The Truth vs. Alex Jones, a feature-length documentary that landed last week on HBO and Max, is a granular, in-depth look at the suits against Jones, including plentiful courtroom footage. This documentary, while nearly two hours long, has almost no fat on it- it consists almost entirely of the trial footage, archival stuff from Jones’ show, and testimonials from the parents and others.

Watching this, you’re going to be angry at Jones for doing and saying those awful things and happy that his victims got some measure of justice.

There’s footage of Jones’ other conspiracy theories, including his belief that fluoride in the water is “making the frogs gay.” Flouride conspiracies, you may remember, were also part of the villain’s plan in Dr. Strangelove. We’re shown plenty of lying and harassment from Jones’ underlings, including the mumbling idiot Dan Bidondi, who I had forgotten about. We also see Jones giving a not especially convincing testimony and going back and forth between (likely-feigned) contrition and defiance.

The documentary was directed by Dan Reed, best known for Leaving Neverland. While promoting that film, Reed once described Michael Jackson’s angry fanboys as “religious fanatics” and “the Islamic State of fandom,” although compared to Jones’ fans, I’m guessing that’s nothing.

There was a documentary back in 2022 called Alex’s War, which looked back on Jones’ entire career with his cooperation. That doc was valuable, in some ways, as a history of the conservative movement over the last 25 years and how Jones went from a fringe figure with equal contempt for both parties to becoming simpatico with an incumbent Republican president who broadly shared his worldview.

The issue with Alex’s War was that the filmmaker, Alex Lee Moyer, didn’t consider it all that important that Jones was a liar and singularly malevolent figure, even issuing a “director’s statement” comparing her work to “the spirit of Errol Morris or Werner Herzog,” while leaving out the part where she challenged her subject in any way whatsoever.

The Truth vs. Alex Jones takes a much more defensible posture when it comes to Jones by hanging him by his own words and making a very convincing case that he’s one of the worst men ever to live.