A Dark Truth (2012) Reviews

• A tad disappointing...

  gonci-562-7278382012-12-22

  I generally agree with other reviews of this film in terms of weak writing and lugubrious direction. I am rating it higher primarily because it actually has real actors in the cast, hence you can watch it without having a gag-reflex. Also, the cinematography was better than average in this genre. While there was nothing original in the plot structure, the moral ambiguity expressed through several key characters was somewhat refreshing...though, not fully resolved. Sadly, the fine actor, Andy Garcia, is not properly exploited in this film. He comes across less than fully dimensional. The director went to a gold mine and barely got silver. In the end, not a waste of the viewer's time, but more an appetizer than an entrée.

• Vigorous, ruthlessly bloody, choppy and glib, actually...skip it.

  secondtake2013-09-20

  A Dark Truth (2012) An ambitious movie, intending more than it achieves. At stake is a critique of the corporate cornering of water rights in the Third World. This is a real problem, and deserves better than this by Hollywood, if a big movie is the way to go about it. (A far better attempt, and a far better movie, is "También la lluvia", or "Even the Rain," set in Bolivia and starring Gael García Bernal.) The really great actor here is Forest Whitaker, who has a fairly small role as a South American rebel leader with a true conscience. The lead actor is the ever-struggling (if sincere) Andy Garcia, who is a retired South American CIA man with a quasi-political radio talk show to keep him and his troubled wife and child alive and very well. You can smell the connection that has to be made here, between Whitaker's jungle world of righteous rebellion and Garcia's safely withdrawn world of buried political misdeeds. The third world (narratively) is the big water purification company itself, with a slightly evil corporate head and his slow-to-wake sister who finally realizes the corporation their father started is corrupt and murderous. This third leg of the triangle is complex, and a bit unconvincing with its too-easy array of killers and corporate spies and Ecuadorian accomplices all a cell phone call away. I might make clear here the movie is not a dud but it's very troubled, both formally (editing and writing issues, mostly) and in terms of its purported content. That is, ultra-violent scenes of mass murder are used over and over again to press home how ruthless and bloody the corporate heads are, safe in their glassed offices in Toronto. (Yes, the corporation is Canadian, which I guess is a nice novelty since Canadians are so famously nice.) The actual problem of water use and clean water supplies for the villages shown is never explored. Instead we have people running and getting gunned down with weirdly nonsensical abandon. A lot. The more you dwell on this the more you realize the movie makers are as evil as the corporate bosses they are portraying. They use this horrifying cinematic mayhem to draw you in and make you (in theory) sympathize with the rebels, and with the ordinary people who just want to live and have clean water. Well, of course! So then we get back to Garcia drawn to the jungle to single-handedly (with a revolver) save these rebels from the advancing army troops. (Yes, Andy Garcia plays the Matt Damon character here, which is really quite funny at times, and not on purpose.) So eventually you see through all the seriousness to a pretty poorly cobbled together movie with lots of overlapping plots and some very very fast solutions to messy problems (like getting the wanted rebel leader out of Ecuador on an airplane without a blink). I'd skip this mess for lots of reasons. And go see "Even the Rain" with its much gentler flaws.

• An Alarm Bell......Now That Your Awake

  LeonLouisRicci2013-01-03

  On the surface, this contemporary assault on corporate maleficence is enough to make its point. But the subject matter is a complicated affair that is lacking in this movie that feels rushed. Messing about in third world countries and designing destinies built on precious resources and manipulating the environment is a heavy undertaking and the suffering of the population by these all too insensitive entities is a problem that is beginning to take shape and needs to be addressed. It is attempted here as an action film with scruples and it does have its heart in the right place. But the very low budget and the glossy attempt to intertwine multi-national business interest and investigative journalism is a bit too much to maintain in this noble but shallow effort. The name Actors are probably here for their moral support and do add a level of authenticity to the cause, but there just isn't enough depth pursued or motivations on either side to justify the broad concept that it is at hand here. It plays like a short story or a magazine article. Enough to tantalize an interest in the matter but not enough to be at all convincing. It does open up the subject and allows some light if not insight into this very disturbing situation.

• The subject matter will rile fair minded people

  JohnRayPeterson2013-11-18

  Though I'm quite familiar with the water wars, as they're called, in South America, I still wanted to see how the likes of Andy Garcia and Forest Whitaker would fair in this Canadian production. The director Damian Lee, who also co-wrote the script, is not a newcomer, but has yet to deliver a film I'd rate above five(out of 10); this one will rate a six from me, because I liked the subject matter and actors Garcia and Whitaker. I'll give Damian Lee credit for the overall results, delivers some action and covers all the basis, but it doesn't quite shine. Then again it did not have a big budget, I'm sure and was not marketed to a very wide audience. The part where Morgan Swinton, played by Deborah Kara Unger, witnesses a suicide protest of a water war victim (lost his whole family) who blew his brain out a few feet from her should have startled me but didn't. That character is supposed to be so moved by what she saw that she turns against the company she and her brother control; the brother Bruce Swinton, played rather well by veteran actor Kim Coates, has to make cruel decisions and does. Those parts of the plot were not as convincing as I hoped they'd be. Andy Garcia plays Jack Begosian, a retired CIA operative riddled with guilt; he satisfactorily depicts that and of course he's the hero. I did like the sub-plot dealing with his family, wife and son. Forest Whitaker and Eva Longoria had interesting roles but the action wife Mia Francis, played by Longoria seemed quite far fetched, given there wasn't much background explaining where she got her skills, just those of Whitaker's character Francisco Francis. The evil police and military, partnered with the big corporation vs the poor peasants of Ecuador (the real events happened in Chile and Bolivia) are the part of the plot most believable because they are based on real events. I highly recommend you read about Water Wars and watch the documentaries Blue Gold and Flow to get an appreciation of the water wars that have occurred and that will again. If you're not into that sort of thing, a compromise may be this film, but try to get it on cable or Netflix or something if you can; it would be okay as well if your local DVD store (any left?) has it on special for rental at .99cents.

• A Current Story Which Needs Telling

  Scott74112013-01-02

  This is the first I've seen of movies on the particular subject of what major international corporations such as Bectel are doing to underdeveloped countries as regards their water. Well done treatment, great cast, excellent acting. No hamming or sensationalism, no gratuitous violence (not that there isn't enough to tell the story). Perhaps other reviewers don't consider water as exciting as blood diamonds or oil or uranium. Perhaps it's not. But it's certainly more important. This fictional presentation of the issue is a good start toward expanding popular awareness of one of the biggest problems facing us in this new century. Not water shortages, critical though they are. Rather, soulless, nationless corporate greed. Seven out of ten.