The Grab

Being told this had something related to Blackfish made me think this doc must have some weight. 10 mins in I thought I was missing something. 20mins in I thought I just hadn't quite slotted in to the information being presented. 30 mins in I realise they are presenting a lot of information like a graph, with no explanation of why it is going up or down and what the x or y is. 40 mins in I'm thinking why I have wasted 40mins of my life. I don't even know what this film is trying to tell me because it's so bad. This thing over here is a thing but another thing is doing this and that thing has recorded it. So water is really important but we don't have any. I even tried getting stoned halfway through to see if it made more sense but it didn't. And now I'm 2 hours older.

I had no idea many of the things that this documentary shows were happening. I think many people wold do the same.

That is why this needs to be seen by more people. There are forces at work that want to remain undetected and do their work behind the scenes, but this doc exposes some of what's happening, and lets you know the plight of many people around the world suffering because of wealthy and powerful people trying to take advantage of them and their resources.

This is exactly the type of documentary I used to watch more of about 10 or 15 years ago, before many of them became political or had an obvious political agenda. This is more about showing you something that's happening in the world so you can educate yourself and do something about it. I'm glad I watched it.

If you want to spend an hour and 42 minutes listening to Americans being shocked by capitalism this could be for you. The problem is that these Americans are only really being listen to in this case because it is foreigners doing capitalism to them for once instead of the other way around, which has been the norm for the last 75 years. The whole thing stinks of hypocrisy considering America has forced open markets and its own brand of fake globalism on the rest of the world for 75 years but now when the world does it back to America it has to be painted as something sinister. Of course it is incredibly sinister. Capitalism is one of the major roots of all Modern evil. But to be fine with it when it's American capital sucking the lifeblood from the rest of the world but then to suddenly develop a conscience when it's foreign capital sucking the lifeblood from America, seems beyond hypocritical and as a result the narrative just doesn't hold.

Sometimes a story is so big and involved that it's difficult to get a handle on it. That can be quite a challenge for even the most adept documentarians and investigative reporters, no matter how eager or adept they may be in taking on such an ambitious project. And that, unfortunately, is the case with the latest offering from director Gabriela Cowperthwaite in her eight-year-long collaboration with journalist Nathan Halverson of The Center for Investigative Reporting. In essence, the film seeks to identify and characterize the new flashpoints underlying emerging geopolitical conflicts. Just as those in recent years have been driven by the compulsion to secure valuable energy supplies, today's budding battlegrounds are once again tied to acquiring access to precious resources - in this case, food and water, along with the aquifers, agricultural land and processing facilities needed to yield these commodities. Evidence of the desperate, growing need for obtaining these materials has already begun to surface - albeit not always overtly - in such incidents as the Arab Spring and even the War in Ukraine. And, because of this developing crisis, those interested in locking down these resources have started scrambling to acquire them, primarily clandestinely, in regions where they're most plentiful. These efforts have been spearheaded by multinational corporations and global financial institutions in cooperation with countries that are experiencing, or have historically experienced, critical food and water shortages, such as China, Russia, Venezuela and the nations of the Middle East. And, to help ensure the success of these ventures, they have enlisted the support of mercenary muscle to achieve their goals. High-profile targets, primarily in Africa and even parts of the US, have come under growing scrutiny, unscrupulously grabbed from their rightful owners and leaving them destitute as a result. Needless to say, this is an incredibly complicated story, one that's difficult to tell, and, regrettably, that's somewhat apparent in the finished product. While the work of Cowperthwaite and Halverson is undoubtedly sincere, having brought a great deal of previously buried information to light, it's nearly impossible to relate this complex narrative in a concise and coherent manner. Given the many story threads involved and the well-camouflaged structures that have been set up to keep the truth and its principal participants concealed, it's a genuine challenge to intelligibly expose the overarching nature of this highly convoluted big picture. Some elements are thus underdeveloped or left incomplete, making this film an often-frustrating watch. That's unfortunate considering the importance of this story, one that has been largely flying below the radar and certainly deserves to be more widely exposed and detailed. With that said, though, "The Grab" represents a valuable start, and one can only hope there will be more releases like this that manage to dig deeper and discover more. It's also heartening that the picture addresses some of the victories that have come about in combatting this issue, particularly those that have benefitted Africans who have been subjected to what is essentially a new form of continental colonization. In an age where increasing social and political volatility is arising due to a failure to effectively address the world's hunger, it's essential that we become aware of this issue before it gets out of hand and leads us down a path we don't dare pursue.

A recent problem that has been created by the multitude of generic flavored Netflix and Amazon Prime docs is that flair and panache have gone MIA. In seeking out truths and exposing unflattering wares, filmmakers of today seemed to have forgotten there are two equal and important parts when making a successful documentary - education AND entertainment. Not that Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite isn't one to provide stark reveals (she was behind the ever-so-effective "Blackfish"), but in the case of her latest "The Grab" it simply boils down to being boring. There's so much info, so much minutiae and so much dark detail that there's simply no room for audience engagement. So while it's fascinating to see previously unknown info about why Russia invaded Ukraine (not surprised in the slightest) and joyous to expose those who use the weak and unknowing for their own enrichment simply because they can (up yours Erik Prince!), without a sense of style to elevate such a big bevy of important material nobody is going to see this film. Presenting a lesson of hard and cold facts are only half the course - it's the ability to also grab the audience's attention that's absent from this class.