By LARRY ROHTER


In feature films about John F. Kennedy, Richard M. Nixon and George W. Bush, Oliver Stone gave free rein to his imagination and was often criticized for doing so. Now, in “South of the Border,” he has turned to Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s controversial populist president, and his reformist allies in South America.

“People who are often demonized, like Nixon and Bush and Chavez and Castro, fascinate me,” Mr. Stone said during a tour to promote the film, which portrays Mr. Chavez as a benevolent, courageous leader who has been unjustly maligned.

Unlike his movies about American presidents, the 78-minute “South of the Border” is meant to be a documentary, and therefore to be held to different standards. But it is plagued by the same issues of accuracy that critics have raised about his movies, dating back to “JFK.”

Initial reviews of “South of the Border,” which was released in Brazil and Argentina in early June and in the United States on June 25, have been tepid. Stephen Holden in The New York Times called it a “provocative, if shallow, exaltation of Latin American socialism,” while Entertainment Weekly described it as “rose-colored agitprop.”

Mr. Stone’s problems in the film begin with his account of Mr. Chavez’s rise. Mr. Chavez’s main opponent in his initial run for president was “a 6-foot- 1-inch blond former Miss Universe” named Irene Saez, and thus “the contest becomes known as the Beauty and the Beast” election, the film contends.

But Mr. Chavez’s main opponent was not Ms. Saez, who finished third . It was Henrique Salas Romer, a bland former state governor .

When this and several other discrepancies were pointed out to Mr. Stone, he said: “I’m sorry about that, and I apologize. ” But he also complained of “nitpicking” and “splitting hairs.”

Tariq Ali, the British-Pakistani historian who helped write the screenplay, added: “It’s hardly a secret that we support the other side. ”

Some of the misinformation that Mr. Stone inserts into his film is relatively benign. But other questionable assertions relate to fundamental issues, including his contention that human rights is “a new buzz phrase,” used mainly to clobber Mr. Chavez.

A similarly tendentious attitude pervades Mr. Stone’s treatment of the April 2002 coup that briefly toppled Mr. Chavez. One of the key events in that crisis was the “Llaguno Bridge Massacre,” in which 19 people were shot to death in circumstances that remain murky .

Mr. Stone’s film relies heavily on the account of Gregory Wilpert, who witnessed some of the exchange of gunfire and is described as an American academic. But Mr. Wilpert is also the husband of Mr. Chavez’s consul-general in New York, Carol Delgado .

In a telephone interview, Mr. Wilpert acknowledged that the first shots seem to have been fired from a building which housed the offices of Freddy Bernal, a pro-Chavez mayor .

“I did not know about that, I didn’t even know it was a Chavista building,” Mr. Stone said .