Coming from Banksy's home city, you can't miss a screening of anything 'him' related. If art in general is subjective, then the question of whether or not somebody is, or not a worthy artist is clearly down to what an artist provokes within. My personal view of the outcome was that the film itself and the string pulling the whole illusion was maybe the art and not the exhibition, either way .... Is this a touch of the Emperor's New clothes? Or is there really such a fine line between genius and insanity?

Banksy directs a documentary about Thierry Guetta who immigrated from France in 1999. He opened a trendy vintage clothing shop in L.A. He is constantly filming with his video camera. He discovers his cousin is street artist Space Invader which turns into a more in-depth obsession with other street artists. Invader connects him with Shepard Fairey which leads to other artists. He gets intrigued with the secretive Banksy. He films Banksy and then Banksy turns the camera on him.There is a fun energy about this. It feels guerrilla secretive outsider work. Then the question becomes whether this is real or fake or semi-real. It colors the movie for me. In the end, this is another form of street art. It doesn't have to follow any demands of a documentary. I took the whole movie with a grain of salt. It doesn't mean it's bad. I just wish this is a more definitive solid movie about Banksy.

This whole mockumentary or whatever you want to call it is just Banksy's huge slap in the face to modern art and the stupid people who fall for it. Especially in a certain part of our country. Fake people buy into fake things. The image that is created around an object is more important than the object itself. These are some of the messages Banksy portrays in this film. He's giving everyone the middle finger while he's laughing all the way to the bank. Most of what you think is "art" these days is really just clever graphic design then repackaged to look like "art". A lot of what you think is "street art" or underground street companies that started from nothing are really hugely financed business tactics. It takes money to make money. If you market enough the sheeple will follow. Art is dead. This was all so well done and clever I just had to give my respect.

Banksy and friends must have mined for ages to extract the glistening artifacts that form the backbone of this documentary. Tracing the roots of street art through the constant eye of amateur filmographer Thierry Guetta, it's a legit, vivid encapsulation of the thoughts that formed a global movement's shared ideals. Guetta, whose branching connections to the scene are nothing short of amazing, captured years' worth of footage, then filed it away with no sense of categorization or even basic labeling. The resultant greatest hits reel makes for some rich viewing material, but I certainly don't envy the amount of whittling it took to get there. At some point those tapes must have run dry, though, because the focus suddenly shifts from the notorious exploits of Space Invader, Shepard Fairey and Banksy to Guetta's own farcical artistic aspirations. Whether intentional or not, (and I'm fairly certain it was) that jolting misdirection changes the tone from a fresh, adventurous documentary to a thick, bitter dissertation on art-for-profit and the redundant question of what defines the terms 'artist' and 'artwork'. It's an abrupt, unnecessary final word that seems tacked on to give the story some sort of sought-after greater message, which is a shame because the film was trucking along nicely enough without it.