“Violence in America today is not caused by the war, it’s not caused by repression, there is no romantic ideal involved,” said President Nixon, commenting on violent political upheaval. “Let’s recognize these people for what they are. They’re not romantic revolutionaries, they’re the same thugs and hoodlums that have always plagued the good people.”

Had the revolutionary group, the Weather Underground, understood the distinction between Nixon’s “thugs and hoodlums” and “the good people,” they could have put down their sticks of dynamite and gone back to picking daisies. But, as the documentary film “The Weather Underground”-by Sam Green and Bill Siegel- shows, the Vietnam War-era made such simple judgments anything but.

The documentary threads together stories that follow some of the main players of the militant faction of the Students for a Democratic Society through archival footage and interviews with the now age-tattered dissidents. The film chronicles bombings and riots perpetrated by the Weatherman, a group dedicated to the violent overthrow of the U.S. Government. The film also addresses the questionable circumstances surrounding the killings of black political leaders and FBI wrong-doing.

Inter-spliced are media reactions to the tumultuous times. The film also sketches an intimate portrayal of how key members of the Weathermen understand -or fail to understand- the relevance of their actions as time and circumstance have now distanced them into a retrospective approach.

The documentary excelled not in presenting a chronology of events but instead in conveying a sense of confusion and futility in attempting to derive any over-arching clarity from the events and ideals involved in the era. Of course, if one is searching for relevance in regards to these trying times, plenty can be drawn.

Most interesting was how these resolved idealists eventually hung up their guns and got jobs, raised children and acquiesced to their almost fated anachronism.

Bernardine Dohrn, a Weatherman leader, was forced underground for 11 years due to the warrant for her arrest. Before disappearing from sight, she described the last interaction with her parents as she parted for what she suspected would be the last time. “My parents weren’t political. They didn’t have anyway to put my need to run into a framework,” she said.

It was these disparities of understanding that the film exhibited strongly and it goes so far as to encourage the viewer to attempt to put these misunderstandings into a framework of their own.

“The Weather Underground” will be shown tonight in the Wexner Center’s Film and Video beginning at 7 p.m. Co-director Sam Green will host a reception for the film at 6 p.m.