Another predictable instalment of Marxist agit-prop from the Hollywood Smug Factory. This movie is an Oliver Stone-sized cartoonization of Bechtel vs Bolivia, which anyone can google. The real story could be told deftly in the standard 3 Acts: 1. Decades of ruinous collectivism drives Bolivia into extreme poverty. Uneducated goat farmers get taken advantage by IMF/World Bank, which dangles aid in return for selling off the water utility in a secret deal to Big Water. 2. Big Water drops 50% rate hike on poor Bolivians, causing them to rise up in protest. Cue violins -- one young idealist gets killed in the ensuing chaos while dozens are injured. "Shttthole country" is still poor and now its water system belongs to a foreign multi-national. Citizens rally around the cause and a massive wave of protests sweep the country. They succeed in chasing away Big Water. They think. 3. Big Water tries to get back at the Bolivians, but not with bullets. It sues the already broke Bolivian government. Case wends its way through the court system drawing the world's attention and probably even garnering a visit fro Sean Penn or Sting or some other celebrity softhead. Ultimately, Big Water settles for 30 CENTS. Cue rejoicing in the streets for the power of the little guy But no. We get gratuitous violence and a story so sickeningly exaggerated that if you like to think about things rather than just ''feeelzzzz'' them, you'll wonder whether Michael Moore didn't direct a Michael Bay Production here. Also, Forest Whitaker can't act to save his zzz, sorry. He's got one expression - brain damaged. Andy Garcia is OK as long as he's mumbling. Eva Whatsername, come on, she's a Bolivian peasant like I'm one of Trump's kids. And what with the face on the Bad Guy's sister? Holy smokes, did she walk into her plastic surgeon and say, ''gimme the alien look from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.''

Very sad to see so many reasonable actors being drowned in liberal swish. Who payed for this crap? Must have been SOROS or some other idiotic liberal supporter. Lets face it people, how often are we going to see obvious propaganda for the great unwashed and say nothing? Not me! I see this as a another paid for by the liberal morons that just want the power and not the responsibility of actually doing something good for the world or the country. OK That is idealistic but whats left for us an an option? If we want to make out as we are some sort of morally upstanding society I can see why films like this are important to keep the fantasy alive. For me however I am a realist and I do not give a flying cigar for the rest of the world.

This is one of the best corporate scandal movies ever made. This time it involves a Canadian company rather than a standard typical stereotype American one.Worldwide travelers like me will appreciate the international realistic business environment exposure that includes Canada, South Africa and Ecuador. Plot twists and turns do not disappoint. Scenes look very realistic and portray how real life business and living conditions exist in these parts of the world.The performances are outstanding. Andy Garcia gives perhaps his best acting performance yet in his career. Forest Whitaker is equally as impressive shining again as an actor playing another convincing international role character.Please do yourself a favor and watch this movie. It entertains and delivers so it should not be missed.

A Dark Truth (2012)An ambitious movie, intending more than it achieves. At stake is a critique of the corporate cornering of water rights in the Third World. This is a real problem, and deserves better than this by Hollywood, if a big movie is the way to go about it. (A far better attempt, and a far better movie, is "También la lluvia", or "Even the Rain," set in Bolivia and starring Gael García Bernal.)The really great actor here is Forest Whitaker, who has a fairly small role as a South American rebel leader with a true conscience. The lead actor is the ever-struggling (if sincere) Andy Garcia, who is a retired South American CIA man with a quasi-political radio talk show to keep him and his troubled wife and child alive and very well. You can smell the connection that has to be made here, between Whitaker's jungle world of righteous rebellion and Garcia's safely withdrawn world of buried political misdeeds. The third world (narratively) is the big water purification company itself, with a slightly evil corporate head and his slow-to-wake sister who finally realizes the corporation their father started is corrupt and murderous. This third leg of the triangle is complex, and a bit unconvincing with its too-easy array of killers and corporate spies and Ecuadorian accomplices all a cell phone call away.I might make clear here the movie is not a dud but it's very troubled, both formally (editing and writing issues, mostly) and in terms of its purported content. That is, ultra-violent scenes of mass murder are used over and over again to press home how ruthless and bloody the corporate heads are, safe in their glassed offices in Toronto. (Yes, the corporation is Canadian, which I guess is a nice novelty since Canadians are so famously nice.) The actual problem of water use and clean water supplies for the villages shown is never explored. Instead we have people running and getting gunned down with weirdly nonsensical abandon. A lot.The more you dwell on this the more you realize the movie makers are as evil as the corporate bosses they are portraying. They use this horrifying cinematic mayhem to draw you in and make you (in theory) sympathize with the rebels, and with the ordinary people who just want to live and have clean water. Well, of course! So then we get back to Garcia drawn to the jungle to single-handedly (with a revolver) save these rebels from the advancing army troops. (Yes, Andy Garcia plays the Matt Damon character here, which is really quite funny at times, and not on purpose.)So eventually you see through all the seriousness to a pretty poorly cobbled together movie with lots of overlapping plots and some very very fast solutions to messy problems (like getting the wanted rebel leader out of Ecuador on an airplane without a blink). I'd skip this mess for lots of reasons. And go see "Even the Rain" with its much gentler flaws.