Thirty minutes into Harry Shearer's film, the Big Uneasy, it is clear what Shearer sought to do with this film.
His goal in Uneasy? To cut through a pile of facts, lies and half-truths and get to the bottom of one of the biggest debates in our country's recent history.
Was the devastation of Hurricane Katrina the result of a monster storm no city could ever prepare for? Or was it the result of a rogue federal agency making up the rules as it went along and ignoring their own experts and their own science? As you might have guessed the answer is the latter.
But before you get to the crux of the matter, told convincingly by respected engineers and a key whistle-blower, you get the best yet video graphic explanation of just where and when the city began to flood.
The how and why comes later.
The first 15 minutes of this film should be part of any college course that studies why Katrina was so devastating. The balance of the film, sans a few odd editing decisions that actually distracted me from the message, builds point by point a case for the obliteration of the Corps of Engineers.
Shearer does to the Corps in this film what mainstream media did to FEMA, he paints the agency as a caricature. His humor, in a very Mr. Burns kind of way, is conveyed with a dry wit that leaves defenders of the Corps stuttering and stumbling, reaching for an explanation when clearly the one explanation there is they would be fired for uttering.
Shearer's film is a true journalistic effort, a documentary that gathered facts first, then drew conclusions later. In other words, this is no Bowling for Columbine.
While visually the film will not engage you in the same way that Spike Lee's If God Is Willing' does, it is every bit as journalistically sound, if not more so.
Shearer's film is a tell-all of the highest Hollywood order, only in this case those being called out aren't beautiful people with stars on the Walk of Fame, but heretofore no-names whose failures merit their own wall of shame.
It is a must see for anyone who loves New Orleans, who loves honesty and loves good journalism.
