Sundance

Crude

 (Documentary)

By DENNIS HARVEY

A Red Envelope Entertainment presentation of an Entendre Films production, in association with @radical.media and Third Eye Motion Picture Co. Produced by Joe Berlinger, Michael Bonfiglio, J.R. DeLeon, Richard Stratton. Executive producers, Liesl Copland, Jon Kamen. Co-producers, Daniel Luciano, Danielle Pelland, Stuart Zweibel. Directed by Joe Berlinger.
 
With: Pablo Fajardo, Luis Yanza, Steven Donziger, Joseph Kohn, Alejandro Ponce, Adolfo Callejas, Diego Larrea, German Yanez, Richard Cabrera, Ricardo Reis Veiga, Sara McMillan Emergildo Criollo, Atossa Soltani, Maria Garofalo, Silvia Yanez, Rosa Moreno, Rafael Correa, Trudie Styler.
 

Breaking from the intimate nonfiction dramas of his prior features ("Brother's Keeper," "Paradise Lost," "Metallica: Some Kind of Monster"), Joe Berlinger's latest docu is an issue-oriented activist effort about corporate malfeasance and environmental catastrophe. Charting still-unresolved efforts by Ecuadorian tribes to get recompense from oil companies for pollution that has destroyed their land, culture and lives over recent decades, the pic makes an engrossing case for justice. Filmmaker's rep should give this a leg up to limited theatrical release, with wider broadcast exposure to follow.

Some 30,000 surviving tribespeople are plaintiffs in a seemingly neverending lawsuit against Chevron, which in 2001 merged with Texaco. Latter built drilling/waste-dumping systems decades ago that many argue permanently poisoned the region's Amazonian water, air and soil, leading to sky-high cancer deaths and other woes. Chevron's argument -- voiced by spokespersons and lawyers who come off as shills here -- is that any blame should be placed on the state-owned biz that took over Ecuador's oil production several years ago. Evidence is damning, however. Colorful personalities on both sides, incriminating new/archival footage, slick assembly and Berlinger's narrative smarts make this unusually involving edutainment.

Camera (color, HD), Juan Diego Perez, Pocho Alvarez, Berlinger, Michael Bonfiglio; editor, Alyse Ardell Spiegel; music, Wendy Blackstone. Reviewed at Sundance Film Festival (competing), Jan. 19, 2009. Running time: 104 MIN.