| Overall Grade: |
B+ |
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| Story: |
B |
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| Acting: |
B+ |
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| Direction: |
B+ |
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| Visuals: |
A |
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Where in the world are the critics' brains?
by socallib (movies profile)
May 17, 2008
6
of
6 people found this review helpful
I read reviews before I saw the film and was quite mystified as to how they missed seeing what a good movie this is--some of their comments are just completely off-base. Then I read more of their reviews afterwards and am even more disgusted with them.
I can't believe any critic would see this film and think it's about 'stunts' or that we are supposed to take seriously the training section. They seem to have no sense of humor and I seriously wonder if they even watched the whole film, it's like they left after the first 5 or 10 minutes. For crying out loud, it should be obvious that this film MAKES FUN of videogame mentality, not sets Spurlock up as a daredevil hero of one!
This is definitely not a movie 'about' Morgan Spurlock. It's very clear that the film is about the Middle East and is about U.S. foreign policy and is trying to counter all the hateful propaganda we see constantly on TV news (as well as in action movies and series like '24') which are just as bad as the kind of propaganda there used to be during WWI about 'the Hun' eating babies, etc. If you only watched Fox 'News' you'd think everyone in the Middle East is a terrorist. Maybe it should be obvious that of course this is an area with millions of ordinary people who abhor violence, but it really isn't obvious to some Americans, who have no concept that there are actual human beings who live there. So it was necessary for Spurlock to make this film. I'm really mad at the critics because they should be championing it, encouraging people to see it, so that it reaches as wide an audience as possible.
It is a little anti-climactic, it would have been much better if he had handled the climax better; and the final minutes are a little sentimental, but up until then it's actually terrific, and the flawed part is only a tiny tiny fraction of the whole. Before that, he gets some excellent footage that is very telling and which totally contradicts what the U.S. government tries to pretend is really going on in the Middle East. For example, he shows the EXTREME poverty in Afghanistan. He shows the repressiveness of the regime in Saudi Arabia which the U.S. is so closely allied to. He shows the third-wolrd poverty and prison-like life of the Palestinians, and also what it's like in Israel: the first-world urban luxury which contrasts utterly with the Palestinians' world, the daily fact of living in fear and having to deal with constant bomb threats, as well as the blind intolerance of the Orthodox Jewish Israelis who wouldn't even let him and his cameraman walk through the streets.
But he also finds all kinds of people who have hope and who give us hope: the very sensible, rational Israeli journalist who speaks about finding a solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; people all over the place who love their children, who understand that the American government is different from the American people, and who want to see all this chaos and destruction stop. And by the way, the U.S. military he talks to seem professional and serious.
Even though it isn't as brilliantly directed as a Michael Moore film, it's a funny, intelligent, and thoughtful movie. Go see it! |
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