Four Horsemen

"Four Horsemen" is the debut feature from writer and director Ross Ashcroft and the four parts of this documentary address the banking crisis, the terrorism threat, worldwide poverty and ecological collapse respectively. While worthy, well-intentioned and (mostly) well-evidenced, for the non-political, this critique of rampant capitalism is probably heavy going with lots of talking heads - no less than 23 experts, including many senior economists and academics, express their trenchant views.

The film seems to have been popular in film festivals and indeed I saw it at the first London Labour Film Festival where it was applauded at the end, but it has some major deficiencies.

First, it is overly ambitious in scope and should perhaps have concentrated simply on the crisis of the banking sector. The links between the four threats were not always made clear and the section on terrorism was particularly weak and over simplistic. Second, the policies promulgated at the end - while rooted in a pro-capitalist position intended to be 'realistic' - involve some outrageously fanciful notions such as returning to a gold standard and abolishing income tax. I would like to know more about Ross Ashcroft and the funding of this work which might explain the source of these odd notions. Third, at no point in either the analysis or the prescription does the film acknowledge that economic and societal change does not start with institutional reform but with the organisation of workers, consumers and citizens. Real change comes through people working together in political parties, trade unions, pressure groups, and social movements.

For all these weaknesses, "Four Horsemen" does make you think and will engender much-needed debate about the urgent need to reform radically our ideas on how we create, consume and distribute wealth and how we regulate and control the institutions involved.

There are all sorts of rumours flying about as to the authorship of this film.

Read the article: 'A Tale Of Plagiarism – I Wrote One Of The Year's Most Acclaimed Documentaries, Not That You'd Know It' on the Bleeding Cool website.

No matter, as to someone who doesn't understand finance but is interested, this is a great documentary.

Robert Zak, of Best For Film describes Four Horsemen as 'one of the clearest and most demystifying attempts at guiding us through the alien landscape of economics.'

Watch an extract of the film by going to YouTube and searching Fiat Money.

I had the opportunity to go to the Four Horsemen UK premiere in London and I've been positively surprised.

The documentary is done in an artistic way and the animations very pleasant to watch. So as soon as the film starts you are captivated by its energy. Nothing to see with some boring and interminable documentary.

The different interviewees speak out without sensationalism. Although the film has an opinion, it is also full of irrefutable facts. And you don't need to have a high level of economics knowledge because everything is done to make understanding some complex concepts.

So this documentary can touch everybody. As well the people who question about the current or future problems in the world that people who are just interested in good documentary features.

I can just advise you to watch it! First because the film rocks and also because this is the kind of film which leaves you plenty of ideas.

FOUR HORSEMEN is an interesting documentary, well worth a watch for most..

As reviewers have mentioned, yes, it does try to cover a few too many topics in just over 90 minutes. But for the average person, a lot of the longer, more conspiratorial, more biased 'world order' YouTube documentaries are far too long and convoluted.

Stylistically, it won some plus points with me for the smooth, easy to understand narration, but lost some for, as others have said, the slight lack of cohesion between sections, points and arguments.

One last downside - on reflection, although I enjoyed the upbeat tone of the conclusion in that 'all is not lost, we can actually change things', I agree with others that the solutions put forward are potentially not viable. That said, I think some reviewers denigrate it unfairly, a documentary is meant to document the truth and put forward observations, a narrative - the documentary makers (especially these who are not huge mainstream corporates) do not make the policy, and are not even influencing those who do, so I think it's acceptable for them to put forward suggestions, right or wrong, for the viewer to look into.

FOR THE POSITIVES! Overall, this documentary should probably be, in part at least, viewed by 90% of western civilisation who are not in finance or government and have no idea that this is going on. Those of you watching this or planning on it probably already have an idea, but think of how many around you really believe what their politicians tell them - we all know plenty.

Whether you agree with every opinion demonstrated or not, it's an eye-opening and worthy use of 90 minutes.

A really good and worthwhile documentary that scratches the surface and point out directions. It's all over the Internet by now so take your time and rewind and dig deeper on your own. The gold standard and abolishing of income taxes might be areas that can be further explained, and the terrorist section needs to take religious fanatism into account.

It's most important message is that we all need to understand the current unsustainable economic system and collectively take responsibility and start the changes from beneath.

And as a side note: I don't know what film user "rune-andresen" have seen, but it can't have been this one.