At a buttock-anesthetising two-and-a-half hours, The Corporation is a pretty tough sell especially when you consider its big message is essentially the world is fucked. But what it covers is so fundamentally relevant, and its polemic so persuasively structured, its worth braving the runtime even if it could easily have been more concise.
This cinematic remix of Joel Bakans book kicks off with the disturbing revelation that, in the eyes of American law, corporations are people. It then asks an FBI profiler to analyse what kind of person a corporation is; he concludes that, given its inherent profit-fuelled selfishness, it must be a psychopath. Then were bludgeoned by the evidence, ranging from environmental atrocities to a recent attempt by one corporation to patent life itself (terrifyingly, it succeeded).
Those who lean rightwards may snort at the talking-head presence of Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein and Michael Moore. But the directors do let the
other side have their say including surprisingly likeable former Shell boss Sir Mark Moody-Stuart.
Besides, its easier to dismiss Bakans arguments than face up to the fact that, if humanity is to survive, we need a serious rethink of how we let big business treat our world