AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Conor Maximus Great documentary showing the people who are willing to fight back against the corporations that are not only willing to destroy and pillage mother nature for profit but are happy to do so. Do I agree with their tactics? No, but am I happy there is now a new extreme fighting back against the other extreme? Yes. For too long corporations have done what they please without caring for anything but the money lining their pockets. This documentary shows the people who where willing to stand up and say enough is enough. Peaceful protests just fell on deaf ears and ended with pepper spray to the eyes and testicles. These guys had enough, they knew for a fact that their protests where not going to change anything so they had to turn it up notch. Corporations would not listen to their cries and simply didn't care so ELF decided to hit them in the only place they care about, their pockets. This documentary follows the story of one of these protesters who decided to fight back and stand up for what he thought was right. Should these people be considered terrorists? No, they should be considered arsonists. If the government defines these people as terrorists then what name should be given to the corporations who drove these people to take these actions? Again I do not condone the actions of these people but they are the lesser of two evils in this situation.

kerangador "What to do when you're screaming out and no one wants to hear you?" I thought they would have learned the lesson in kindergarten.The eco-terrorists look to me like a bunch of spoiled rich brats who just want to have a tantrum, in this involving arson, because it seems no one wants to hear them.You know them - they're usually the kids in the classroom who are screaming out because they didn't get cake.Here's an idea. Go to a third-world country if you're so concerned and work with the villagers there.Going out and burning stuff down is just wrong. In that case, everyone should get a gun and start taking matters into their own hands. Now where would that lead us?

paul2001sw-1 What do you do if you feel something terrible is happening, and the cause of that terrible thing is systematic? - that is, the systems for governing our world offer no possibility of change, because they themselves are part of the problem. Either you accept the system, or you fight it - and if your methods include violence, you thereby become a terrorist, and (in a sense) an enemy of those who chose to work within the system instead. The Earth Liberation Front were a group of ecological activists who took to arson; and whose members eventually wound up in gaol. This film allows them to present their case, and interestingly, they come over as intelligent and thoughtful and not in the least wild or woolly in their thinking. To its credit, the film also interviews some of their targets and those responsible for their prosecution, who are not demonised and who also come over as human. The only thing I struggled with was the insistence of front members that they weren't terrorists. I rather think they were - but this thought-provoking documentary raises the question of whether being a terrorist is always wrong, and doesn't offer easy answers in either direction.

TheDocHierarchy In 2005, former Earth Liberation Front (ELF) member Daniel McGowan is arrested, along with a dozen others, in a co-ordinated operation to bring to justice those responsible for a series of arson attacks over the previous decade. McGowan is implicated for his role in a number of these attacks, and faces a double life sentence if he continues to refuse to take a plea (and, in doing so, turn on his former comrades). Under house arrest in his sister's New York apartment, McGowan invites Marshall Curry in to document the period up to his imprisonment.The ELF are not an easy organization to categorize; formed seemingly out of the believed futility of peaceful and non-violent demonstration to protect the 'raping' of the environment, they use economic warfare (in the form of property destruction) to make their points instead. McGowan, a late-comer to the organization but one who quickly uses his charm and passion for the cause to rise through the ranks, does not deny any of the charges laid before him. Rather, Curry is granted insider accounts from not merely the arrestee but also a number of his co-conspirators (even, most notably, the snitch who gave McGowan and his accomplices up in the years after the arson attacks).Curry's film is not a propaganda film for McGowan, or even the ELF; it doesn't throw statistics at you regarding the extent of logging or the dangers of genetically-modified food (two of the organization's targets for attacks). Rather, it serves to establish a landscape more complex than the simplistic 'eco-terrorist' slur used to describe McGowan et al, without necessarily demanding sympathy for their bleak position and future.The ELF's case is nevertheless made strongly: in all the EDF's actions - and they number over 1200 incidents - not a single human casualty results, and the targets are invariably large organizations and corporations. The eco-warrior McGowan is at pains to stress their actions as mere 'property destruction', and it is hard to argue otherwise - particularly with the poignant NY backdrop - yet Curry is even-handed enough to also interview the workers and families of those whose workplaces have been destroyed. To them, the destruction of property is not a means to an end (however noble), but a misunderstanding of what it is they do. An Oregonian logging executive, whose offices were targeted by the ELF in 2001, is therefore equally convincing in arguing that by definition, he is also an 'environmentalist' - for every tree his business cuts down, six have to be planted, and further, if there were no trees left, there would be no logging business either.The points raised on both sides are relevant and thought-provoking; it is patently clear no- one is out to do serious harm, either to the environment or to the workers, yet both sides remain at loggerheads over whose supposed 'crime' is worse. And while the battle goes on, everyone continues to suffer. There is clearly a middle-way between the tree-hugging environmentalism of the ELF and the business-savvy but ecologically-dependent corporations and businesses they target, but why hasn't it been found?Concluding Thought: MacGowan may well not be a 'terrorist' in the sense of a suicide bomber seeking maximum casualties, but the arson attacks are undoubtedly intended to instill a degree of fear to encourage desired political action. That is still terrorism.