The 11th Hour: Documentary Film Review

Leonardo DiCaprio hosts "The 11th Hour," a documentary released in 2007 about the state of our Earth's health.

Initially, I saw this film when it was released last fall. Now, a year later, I'm writing a review because I got to wondering how much of it already is, or will be true in the near future.

DiCaprio presents his argument for humankind to change their ways over a 95 minute period. During this time he hosts multiple interviews with professors and ecologists as well as other experts in the field. This film echoes Al Gore's Oscar winning planetary documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth" about global warming.

DiCaprio's primary aim is to alert and educate Earth's population to the harm it is causing it's lifeline because afterall, it is the 11th hour. If we are to make a move to improve our way of life, now is the time.

Fortunately for this documentary it doesn't just point the finger and say, "look what you've done," it provides solid suggestions for how to change so that humanity's footprint on Earth is reduced. For this reason, the film is very easy to watch.

DiCaprio provides plenty of evidence for his argument and his narration is placed against a backdrop of many different kinds of scenery: city as well as wilderness. To help his point along, DiCaprio employs the use of some computer generated images to reflect what he and others believes will happen to the Earth if humans do not change their ways.

The documentary is also very well written and easy to follow; it is written in a way so eco-dummies such as myself can keep up with the rest of the class.

The Other Side:

Who knows the premise of the South Park episode entitled, "Smug?" For anyone who doesn't watch the show or otherwise has not seen the episode the idea is as follows: Kyle's parents move the family to San Francisco for a better quality of life. Stan misses his friend Kyle and writes a song about how people need to change their ways, clean up the environment and drive hybrid vehicles.

Stan performs this task in order to show Kyle's parents the people of South Park can be just as ahead of the curve as the environmentally conscious people of San Fran and thus will move back to South Park. While the song does not yield the results Stan had hoped, it is a partial victory in that it convinces the people of South Park to begin driving hybrid vehicles.

The awful backlash of all of these people driving hybrids is the drivers become unbelievably smug. The hybrid drivers begin to treat the non-hybrid drivers as less than what they are. Yes, people are driving cleaner cars, however, is the cost of treating other people like crap because they don't drive hybrids truly worth the effort for a cleaner environment?

I bring this episode of South Park into the light because the same douche bag attitude the people of the quiet little mountain town carry around all day is the same attitude a lot of the people involved with the documentary carry around. Countless times during interviews the interviewees get a certain sense of scum bag about them. They speak in high and mighty ways which ostensibly could be written off as simply being informative to the audience. However, with a closer look it appears to me they're saying, "I'm better than you because I'm educated about global warming...and did I mention my house is made from recycled Chinese newspapers?"

Save for, "The Beach," I love DiCaprio's work. However, even he is guilty of acting like a pompous twat. During one segment, a press conference, DiCaprio lists a myriad of things he has done to help the environment: his house is "green," he's been driving hybrid cars for six years, he is friends with Al Gore who introduced him to the problems at hand more than a decade before "The 11th Hour" was produced. My question is, "why should I care?" The fact that DiCaprio is friends with powerful people doesn't affect me. I don't care if he and his friends drive the Prius.

In truth, this is the only place the documentary falls short and gets annoying. I'm fine with the facts.

Conclusion:

As always, watch and judge for yourself. I give this documentary 4.0/5.0 stars because of the "smug." Other than the douche-bagery the film is very informative and even enjoyable.