Fast, Cheap & Out of Control

Encapsulated reviews are misleading. I had several times bypassed "Fast, Cheap and Out of Control" on IFC for more lively sounding fare on movie channels. When I finally selected it as the least boring of an afternoon's TV movie offerings, I regretted not having picked it sooner and seen it more often.

This documentary delighted me! Interviews were enhanced by display of the works of four brilliant practitioners, fanatical about the unusual focus of their work or study. We are introduced to naked mole rats, robots as the next stage in evolution, wild animal training and a visionary handicrafter/topiary designer. Each professional provided unusual insights to their efforts and perhaps to our own natures as human beings.

The documentary seemed designed to hold even those with the even shortest of attention spans. Rather than engaging each subject in depth as a single segment, the interviews are presented in approximately one minute scenarios, often with a montage of old film footage relating connections and historical ideas about some of the subject matter. Just as a viewer's mind might start to drift during a segment, it collides with the next subject, often forcing mental connections that may not have come naturally.

After watching this one, I felt compelled to find and view the other productions of Errol Morris, and I shall keep an eye out for his future works. I believe that its audience should comprise anyone with a spark of interest in the world around them and the desire to be entertained. Whether you are fond of documentaries or not, I think this one will offer a pleasant and quickly passing ninety minutes.

Gene Romero gromero001@aol.com

This was easily the best film of 1997.

Morris has tried it all; one camera documentary, for Gates of Heaven; Rashomon tinged storytelling, with The Thin Blue Line; and now, finally, the beautiful and moving Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control.

In the earlier films, the viewer's left with the task of sifting through lots of unedited information to put together his own story from what's been gathered, rather like Ed Wood going through rolls of archival footage to see if there's a movie there. In this one, Morris had a story to tell, and he goes after it with aplomb and purpose. His camera angles are ingenious, his use of slow motion masterful, and the story--that the personality traits that lead to success are the same, regardless of the stripe of the pursuit--comes along gently. Once the connection's been made, he overlaps the voice of one participant over the work of another, and the resonances between all of them become more and more apparent.

Watching Morris come along as a filmmaker is a little like watching a favorite cousin come of age. This movie makes you want to cheer, not only for Morris, but for the cast of misfits he's put on film who've taken their lives and made something of them. These four men are workers. They're not managers, not victims of dumb luck. They're doing these jobs because they love them, and because they love them and work without pause, they've become successful. They're not geniuses. Like Morris, they've merely managed to focus. Morris shows us what a rare thing that is. Bravo.

Somehow the Morris mix just doesn't jell this time. I'm normally a huge fan of Mr. Morris's films, especially the truly great Gates of Heaven. But Fast, Cheap & Out of Control is ironically aptly titled. Instead of providing some quirky insight into the human condition, the film only manages to annoy. And our four subjects? Well, they grate on the nerves to be honest. It's hard to say what's missing, maybe a sense of humor, maybe some more directorial involvement. In any event, I wouldn't go out of my way to catch this flick.

Four men are interviewed separately. One man studies hairless mole rats. One man is a topiary gardener. One man is a retired lion tamer. One is a robotics designer. Each has a passion (or an obsession) with their chosen subject but have seemingly little in common. With the collection of their interviews, Errol Morris explores the themes of growth, development and evolution of species.

My plot summary suggests that I "got" what Morris was trying to do but really this is my guess. If that was his intension though then he has fallen short of it because rather than coming together to form a documentary, the film feels like it is all over the place with no real direction or control over the subject matter. Each of the men are reasonably interesting by themselves and the topics are unusual enough to hold the interest. However the way Morris uses them is poor and the film is cluttered with archive movie footage and a terrible musical score. I'm not totally sure how he was trying to get to where he wanted to be, maybe at one point he just decided to revel in the "weirdness" of his subjects and give up on pulling it all together.

The men are mostly interesting even if their subjects aren't particularly. The gardener was probably the only one that I actively found pretty dull, the others had a bit of character and passion that endeared them to me. Maybe if Morris had tried to do more with the men themselves he could have done something interesting, but by going for the bigger theme he loses his way and ultimately his film shows it consistently throughout.

Overall then a disappointing film from start to finish. Die-hard fans of Morris might find enough of his style and interest to carry them through but for me I found it to be a real mess of a documentary that doesn't seem to have any design or structure about and left me wondering what I was watching and why I was bothering.

Hiding within this movie are four fairly interesting mini-documentaries about four men, each with a vision - perhaps even an obsession - about one particular facet of life. The common thread uniting them is that each of the four is fascinated by the ways in which animals, men, plants, and even machines evolve, learn, and grow. A recurring theme is training or control.

Unfortunately, these four interesting stories are chopped up and interwoven in ways that often seem arbitrary and pointless. Plus, about 25% of the movie is made up of clips from other, mostly bad, movies... and the soundtrack music is often intrusive and annoying. So I'm mystified why a number of critics thought this was the best documentary of 1997. Maybe there were just a lot of bad documentaries that year!

Worth watching if you have nothing else to do, but nowhere near great.