From a 5.4.14 review by wegotthiscovered.com‘s Adam A. Donaldson: “Mad As Hell (2.6 in NY/LA/VOD) is a rare opportunity to use the life story of Cenk Uygur to say something about the modern media culture, but instead, it’s kind of about the awesomeness of Uygur, how he put together his Ocean’s 11 like team of media upstarts and rocked the so-called squares in their ivory tower, despite the fact that the man leading the revolution longed to have a corner office in one of those very same towers. The documentary does have great energy though, and if you’re unfamiliar with The Young Turks, this is probably a good introduction to the outlet. And hey, if you scroll over to YouTube and click ‘subscribe’ on the Young Turks channel, then I guess it’s mission accomplished.

“The part of the film that works best is when it follows Uygur’s attempt to secure a prime time spot on MSNBC. Even though Uygur is a titan of the new media, he still yearns for the acceptance and the standing of the mainstream media, and he lobbies hard for some vacant real estate by subbing for other hosts and getting a temporary show on the network while still balancing his Young Turks responsibilities. It’s fascinating to see Uygur, the last angry man as it were, the man who once proudly say, ‘I didn’t want to take down Chris Matthews, he made me do it,’ now throw his show to Matthews saying, ‘Hardball, which is excellent, starts now,’ just to get a shot at being, in his mind, a player.

“Of course, Uygur never gets his permanent spot on the MSNBC line-up, and turns down a weekend show to go back to Young Turks full-time. The reason why was because the softer Uygur was still too hard for the network brass, even though that’s exactly what they wanted.”