Noutions Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Taraparain Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Thoughtnot It is difficult to review such a movie without spoilers, but I shall try. Terrorism is always terrorism. There is no excuse for it. This is a silly, pretentious movie that tries to justify anarchy and not in an interesting way. Of course pharmaceutical companies shouldn't be poisoning people, but poisoning them back solves nothing. The acting is not bad. The writing and direction are feeble.The characters are unbelievable and totally one-dimensional---either all good or all bad. Not all young people are saints. Not all middle-aged people are evil polluters. Not all policemen are corporate lackeys. Let's face it, it has all been said before and in more interesting ways. The action is slow- moving and uninteresting. Watch something else.

Qurucu This movie starts strong. Marling (Sarah) is a credible rent-a-spy. The plot grabs you quickly, which makes it possible to see past the hackneyed "evil corporations" device. Skarsgard's Benji remains an enigma. Unlike other members of his crew, he was not a victim of corporate malfeasance, unless being left with too much money counts. One can even accept that Sarah, who starts so strong, is weak enough to be sucked into the flower-child community. But what tanks the plot is the ending, the idea that Marling can turn hardened private spies into eco-warriors, apparently by sheer dint of personality. Rather than forcing her (and us) to decide whether corporate crimes justify eco-terrorism, we are presented with a third way: Sarah jetting around the globe, recruiting agents, and corporate evil-doers falling in her wake. Unfortunate because the main plot device held potential.

skeptic skeptical Well, I rather liked The East. It was not boring, and although it definitely had an ax to grind and was strongly slanted in favor of activism and against corporatism, at least it attempted not to serve as a "spiritual adviser" to terrorist groups, so hopefully the director will not be taken out by Predator drone.There was an obvious effort here not to "drink the koolaid" while calling out corporate greed and, more specifically, the evil and profoundly mercenary private security companies made possible by Dick Cheney's LOGCAP. So the group, which did in fact dose the spy with some sort of drug (LSD?), is not really glorified, and their hypocritical and self-defeating tactics are criticized quite clearly. I would say that the film succeeds in shedding some light on radical activist groups, but it is misleading to suggest that the one examined here matches the profile of "anarchists". These young people seem more like disenchanted and to some extent discarded outsiders than moral crusaders. They strike me as the very same types of people who were lured into Charles Manson's murderous cult some decades back. We learn at the very end of the film, in a super-rushed five-minute riff, that the main protagonist has found her own way. She seeks out private contractors and converts them to the point where they find legal ways to expose their employers' clients. Truly a film which believes in justice and truth Big Time (as Cheney himself would say), but also that one can come to "see the light" while being guided by someone who is partially blind--at least to the errors of his own ways.

Mr_Mirage Patricia Clarkson has a role so small in this film, but like a tiny piece of Uranium has a massive impact.Here she is the head of the main character's company, a firm that supplies intelligence for corporations, infiltrating underground groups that act out against companies.In the course of this film, there is a sequence in which our heroine is present when a "monkey wrench" (called a jam) of sorts is about to happen and a large number of people are about to be badly treated. She then calls Clarkson with concerns about the event about to take place mere minutes (like nearly seconds), Clarkson has a response that is the essence of corporate evil.In this one, brief line, Clarkson nails Corporate Swine Person as well as if not better than Gary Cole in Office Space or Paul Reiser in Aliens.Overall the film is well made, well directed and has Ellen Page in it. (Anything with Ellen Page is worth watching at least once IMHO.) A good gripping thriller, well made and with an edge. 9/10