The film stars people from the new wave of actors, the ones that play in indie or intellectual films, the ones with a message. Brit Marling, Alexander Skarsgard, Ellen Page, Toby Kebbell, even Julia Ormond. The movie has such a script, too, one with a message, exposing the crimes corporations perpetrate against the environment and, directly or indirectly, the people.
However, the message is weak. The terrorists are postcard cultists, gathered around a charismatic character by their strong desire to belong to something greater. The one sent to get them is a corporate agent with a conscience, her handlers with no scruples. The corporate crimes obvious and as simple to uncover as injecting a single dose of an approved drug and immediately seeing the side effects. The ending tried to redeem the film, but failed, drowned within a fantasy that made no sense.
I wanted to like the film, but it felt lazy, taking shortcuts where none were necessary. In the end, not only I didn't empathize with the eco-terrorists, but I despised them completely, and the truth is I didn't "see" a way out of it. The corporatists were ridiculously Machiavellian, but with no real purpose, the terrorists stupid enough to defeat themselves, the charismatic leader unable to lead. Hell, the only thing worse would have been for the agent to be FBI or some other "good guy by default".
Bottom line: there was no real saving this film. Paranoid ecologists will love this film, but people who were not already convinced to their unflinching core of the truth of their beliefs will not change them because of The East. And if there were, then nothing changes their mind anyway.
However, the message is weak. The terrorists are postcard cultists, gathered around a charismatic character by their strong desire to belong to something greater. The one sent to get them is a corporate agent with a conscience, her handlers with no scruples. The corporate crimes obvious and as simple to uncover as injecting a single dose of an approved drug and immediately seeing the side effects. The ending tried to redeem the film, but failed, drowned within a fantasy that made no sense.
I wanted to like the film, but it felt lazy, taking shortcuts where none were necessary. In the end, not only I didn't empathize with the eco-terrorists, but I despised them completely, and the truth is I didn't "see" a way out of it. The corporatists were ridiculously Machiavellian, but with no real purpose, the terrorists stupid enough to defeat themselves, the charismatic leader unable to lead. Hell, the only thing worse would have been for the agent to be FBI or some other "good guy by default".
Bottom line: there was no real saving this film. Paranoid ecologists will love this film, but people who were not already convinced to their unflinching core of the truth of their beliefs will not change them because of The East. And if there were, then nothing changes their mind anyway.