OUT OF BALANCE (a rather mediocre title by the way) is a documentary which cries out to the heavens about global warming. It points a stiff finger at ExxonMobil, claiming them to be complicit in delaying the U.S. response to this incredibly urgent problem. This is an interesting but hardly groundbreaking documentary and it feels a little light on the implicating evidence.
I'm going to fess up to not having seen An Inconvenient Truth so I don't have another doc on this subject to compare it to but OUT OF BALANCE feels home grown and a bit too personal to be taken seriously as either filmmaking or journalism. I did find much of what is put forth in the film to be credible but this doc wants to blaze trails and that just doesn't happen. We all know that major corporations (whether tobacco companies, oil companies, or auto manufacturers) use deceptive advertising and phony p.r. to steer the American people away from any feelings of righteous indignation when it comes to infractions of morality or even of the law. Corporations know that if you can delay and frustrate legal claims and put confusing p.r. out there you can stall and eventually get away with just about anything. The American people are easily distracted and the legal system can often be manipulated toward nefarious ends.
The evidence in Tom Jackson's doc feels presumptive and I could have used more back up to his many assertions against ExxonMobil. Essentially he expects us to believe what the talking heads are saying and to take it at face value. There is some fact, and some detail but it's less than one would like to see.
That having been said, I did enjoy the film and I do believe most of its assertions. Global warming is a reality. Our climate is changing. The earth is being affected. We do not know what the ultimate toll will be. However, as they say, it seems that "there will be blood". We are already paying the price. Just ask those who have lost their homes in the disproportionate number of hurricanes that have cropped up in the last five years. Look at the increased drought in many areas, the increase in large scale forest fires. The list goes on.
Finally, the oil companies do represent greed unparalleled and we do let them get away with it because many people own stock. These corporations are responsible for massive misinformation campaigns and ExxonMobil is responsible for the oil spill in Alaska. They did a crappy job of cleaning it up. Our buddy "W" is complicit for supporting them over the years and for putting corporate interests before the good of the American people. What can you say? It's pretty depressing.
Even a dog knows not to soil its own bed but human beings just keep destroying their own planet and, as of yet, no one is doing anything substantive about it. Karma's a bitch.
And it's coming if we don't begin to act soon.