You know, I got to hand it to Joe Cross, the enthusiastic Australian stockbroker turned lifestyle guru who spearheaded this 97 minute infomercial. He instinctively knows that the best way to prime his audience is through personal stakes and dramatic results. Thus instead of going the sane, unsexy route of weening out of bad habits to slowly lose excess weight, Cross puts his body through a 60-day juice cleanse while driving across America, confronting ordinary citizens about their diets. Why; probably because its easier to hock his "Reboot with Joe" program to those looking for quick and easy solutions.It's easy to buy into it. The rotund sufferer of chronic urticaria we meet at the beginning of the film has the easy-going personality of a lazed step-father being asked for $20 bucks. Even as he looses the weight, he massages the soft sell with a canned genuineness and an easy to digest chipper attitude. "I was fat, and there was no one to blame but myself," he says in a moment of reflection. He liquefies his veggies and goes all in. "Don't taste half bad."As the film wears on, Joe faces off against the litany of excuses people have for eating what they eat. "I only got so long on this earth, I might as well enjoy it," is the common refrain though my personal favorite answer to the question, "why do you eat all this junk?" has to be, "Because I'm sixteen." Everyone in frame seems to know they're not doing the right thing. To Joe these people are addicted to food and lack the willpower to seek solutions. The solution in his eyes is of course a "reboot" that will reprogram the body to readily take in micronutrients and macronutrients. "If all the world's major religions fast, then they must be onto something." I'm no nutritionist so I'm not going to make any bold claims. Lest to say, there's probably more to a healthy lifestyle than Joe Cross's musings and a few choice doctors stating the obvious. This is where Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead gets into serious trouble. Thanks to clever editing, Cross's self-evident truisms seem to meld into doctor testimonials with no actual data to backup anything. Nowhere is this more evident than when Cross's third act guinea pig Phil Staples goes into the doctor's office with him and he prods the doctor with leading questions like, "What will happen if Phil continues to eat like he does?" and "Is Phil healthy enough to go on a fast?" Notice he never asks "Should he go on a fast." The film also ignores the social aspect of its project. Joe's example, as amazing as it looks on TV, probably has more to do with him being able to spend 60 days consuming less calories than Gwyneth Paltrow starring in a Calista Flockhart biopic. The rest of us, you know, have to work for a living and need the caloric intake to make sure we don't collapse on our wheelbarrows and in our cement mixers (I'm assuming my readership are interminably sarcastic bricklayers). We also often live in food deserts, suffer from malnutrition, succumb to social and peer-pressure such as indulging in a Fourth of July cookout etc. Yes, it's ultimately you choice but your choice is informed by the world around you. And if you need any further proof that a 60-day juice cleanse may not work for everyone, check out Phil's article, "I Was the Poster Boy for Weight Loss...Then I Gained 200 Pounds".Lack of data, lack of comprehensiveness and the nagging suspicion that you're being sold something you don't need, like a canister of turtle wax. That is Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead in a nutshell. The fact that it's so laser-focused on creating and maintaining a brand may just be its only saving grace because it least it doesn't have that far to fall. It simply wants to make what it does look great and I suppose it succeeds in those modest ends. It's ultimately a D+ doc; C- because I'm embarrassed to say I dusted off the old juicer after I saw it.

I can understand people saying that this is a very inspirational story, because it definitely is. Although I myself don't need to lose weight (quite the opposite), a couple of my friends and family members do struggle with their overweight, although not as extensive as the mains in this movie.This movie explores the age old solution. Get healthy nutrition and start exercising. Hey and guess what...it works. The problem for most people is willpower to continue on their diet, something this movie clearly shows with the 4th of July BBQ sequence. And in a time where people tend to only just 'try every diet pill on the market', trying to use the age old solution is a story worth documenting.The movie starts quite good for a documentary. It uses animation to illustrate Joe's problem. The movie is executed good until Phil calls Joe. It's like a whole new movie starts. Different tone, different design. And compared to the greatly executed first part, it feels like a quick and cheap add-on. Especially when the movie ends with the scrolling text in the end. Why not illustrate the effect that Joe and Phil had on their community with yet another animation and add the additional information as a voice-over. In other words, come full circle. It feels like the first part was created for theatrical release, as a short portrait of Joe, and that after its run we now get the 'made for television' extended cut, including the longer story of Phil.As a film maker myself I can understand that sometimes the story decides the form of the end result. But the story is there and it is a wonderful one. It's the execution of telling that story that is lacking in some parts. I would still highly recommend people, who struggle with their weight, to watch this movie though. But since IMDb is about the movie as a whole, I can't give it a high vote just for having an inspirational story.

I've been interested in juicing a while but recently my brother and his partner inspired me to finally get moving with it. They recommended this film to me and on the night before I started my 60 day juicing reboot I decided to give it a shot. Well I'm definitely happy i watched it. It helped to clear up a lot of myths I had about the procedure and such. But it left me with more than a few questions that I had to research on my own. They neglected to tell you how many glasses of juice you should drink every day and if you could take medication while your juicing, etc. Not that they should have. After all it is a documentary film not an infomercial. That being said it's represented in a fairly generic fashion but is effective because of the subject matter. It is an inspiring film but I wish they could have developed the journey a bit more and with more of an emotional angle. I did appreciate a lot of the information on screen but felt that their was a slight kiddish aspect to it. Now maybe I will feel better after I start juicing and am being cynical. But as a documentary I would have hoped they would have touched on many more aspects of the material he was exploring instead of just a cultish type of execution that leaves everything gleaming with a big smile. Regardless of the flaws from a critical angle the film is an important one and should be seen by anyone looking to better themselves. 3.5/5

I'm usually a fan of films that are well-done, good cinematography, good scores, good editing and I'm afraid this film lacks in most of those departments. Ceteris paribus, this quality transposed to another doc and I'd have given maybe 2 to 4 stars. The real saving grace here though is the story. The transformation of Phil's life in the last hour or so of the film is really so inspirational and that even a super film snob - and book snob and financial snob and political affairs snob etc - like me can with no reservations give this 9 stars. Really touching, really eye-opening, I love and applaud this film (even if I hated the cartoon segments!) Recommended and recommendable.