The movie is scrappy and rambling and overly earnest, but beyond the galumphing biopic of the week dialogue, the cruddy lighting, the thin and laborious ''Abbie's wife remembers the Movement in flashback'' structure, the real problem is the one that has bedeviled just about every attempt to portray the '60s on film: The movie makes the mistake of viewing people who defined themselves by their beliefs as if that was really all there was to them.
Vincent D'Onofrio, hidden behind a mop of curls, speaking in a New England accent so pointed it sounds like it belongs in a dinner theater production of ''Our Town,'' plays Hoffman with vibrance and a certain cuddly charm, but what's missing is the full, sharp thrust of his sly dog ego. No one in '60s movies is ever allowed to be a volatile, mixed motive narcissist. This remains one era whose memories have been all but emasculated through reverence.
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