It focuses on Sarah Palin, who was Governor of Alaska and later the Republican Party nominee for vice president in the 2008 United States presidential election.

After the United States elections in November 2010, when the Republican Party increased their seats in Congress, Palin asked her aide, Rebecca Mansour, to contact Bannon about creating a series of videos to explain Palin's stepping down as Governor of Alaska and to "protect her legacy" to set up for a potential campaign for the 2012 United States presidential election.

[3] Wes Little of CNN describes some of the imagery in the film: "Clockwork Orange"-esque evocative images sprinkled throughout (shark attacks, bodies being buried, warfare both modern and ancient).

Before the commercial release, the documentary had one-night screenings at select theaters in the states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

New York Post critic Kyle Smith described the film as "massively flawed", and said, "I don't know why Sarah Palin called her movie 'The Undefeated'.

"[9] Time critic Richard Corliss, who panned the film, stated "Bannon applies so much idolatrous airbrushing to his portrait of the divine Sarah that the movie might be called Going Rouge.

But he is canny in identifying the 2½-year governor of Alaska as both a faultless heroine and, even better, a victim of the omnipotent American left... in Bannon's version of things, Palin fights the good fight, beats the fat cats and trumpets the pioneer independence of Alaskans from the predatory federal government — a government that, by the way, returns $1.84 in aid to the state for every dollar it sends to Washington..."[10] The film was given a limited theatrical release in ten AMC theaters located in areas with strong Tea Party support, and was received positively there,[11][12][13][14][15][16] Victory Film Group reported that the film averaged $5,000 per screen in the first two days of release.

[18] However, by the second week of release box office revenue declined by 63% despite a 40% increase in theaters showing the film, with a total gross of only $24,000.