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Reviews Counted:43
Fresh:41
Rotten:2
Average Rating:7.6/10
Consensus: Dynamic, tightly arranged, and deliberately provocative, Joe Berlinger's Crude is a sobering, enraging wake-up call.
Genre: Education/General Interest
Synopsis: Director Joe Berlinger continues in the tradition of his justice-driven films BROTHER’S KEEPER and PARADISE LOST with this documentary. CRUDE travels to South America, where it investigates the... [More]
Director: Joe Berlinger
When well-meaning Trudie Styler, founder of Rainforest Foundation (and Sting’s wife), comes on, even Farjardo’s convictions and Berlinger’s early scenes about native culture and ancestry get swept up amidst hubristic hubbub.
A good cause does not necessarily a fully satisfying movie make.
Mr. Berlinger has both a strong narrative instinct and a keen eye for incongruous, evocative and powerful images.
Top CriticA well-balanced and thought-provoking documentary that doesn't forget the cinema-going experience needs to entertain as well as educate.
This isn't just a story of right and wrong, it's a story of money and media and, most of all, spin.
A provocative, well-balanced, illuminating and thoroughly engrossing documentary.
while Berlinger allows the film to get a little too star-struck, spending less time with the winningly humble patchwork alliance doing the lawsuit's hard work, Crude at least acknowledges the reason behind this shift
An elegantly structured, horrifying film that shows the vanishing rainforest may be the least of the Amazon's worries.
A gripping, multifaceted thriller about media politics, global economics, and legal infighting. Wherever your sympathies fall, this may teach you a lot about the way the modern world works.
"Crude" is a knock-your-socks-off documentary that will leave you speechless. It's the best documentary of the year.
Berlinger doesn't counter Chevron's counter charges with facts and figures. With footage of petrochemical-sludge swamps and babies covered with flaming sores, he doesn't especially need to.
An engrossing case for justice.
Top CriticOne has to wonder if oil industry executives are concerned about the release of Joe Berlinger's damning documentary.
Involving doc about the devastating impact of oil exploration on Ecuador's rainforest community.
Top CriticCrude is both a tribute to human-rights tenacity and a sobering account of the multinational-Moloch greed that can keep justice in limbo.
A dynamic and dramatic documentary about the David vs. Goliath dimensions of the "Amazon Chernobyl" case where indigenous tribal groups are fighting the multinational corporation Chevron.
Keeps a tight focus on a sprawling topic, condensing three years of production into a narrative that neatly lays out the history of the controversy, the opposing viewpoints and key players
A stinging indictment of the huge Chevron corporation, which has been sued for despoiling the Ecuadorian Amazon to the severe detriment of the indigenous population.
Berlinger provides a bracing and intelligent look at how such battles are (and perhaps must be) fought in a world that's hardly lacking when it comes to tales of injustice.
Berlinger gives a good amount of time to the big oil representatives, but it's clear that he's on the side of the people. Aside from that, Crude is a fine work of journalism.
September 10, 2009:
Critics Consensus: 9 Looks Great, But The Plot's Weak
This week at the movies, we've got post-apocalyptic conflict (9, with voice work by Elijah Wood and Jennifer Connelly); Antarctic intrigue (Whiteout, starring Kate Beckinsale... More...
August 11, 2009:
Trailer & Poster review 
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