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Don't Believe the Hype

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

This is worth watching more for it's cautionary value than it's message. It does a good job describing what has become of America since the Great Depression, but bases it's viewpoint on the naive idealism of the libertarian - blaming the problem on straying from "classical" economics and advocating a return to the gold standard and demonizing debt as the root of all evil. At least it admits that regulation is a good thing. It does do a good job of pointing out that libertarians and progressives share a fair amount of common ground, and might make a reasonably functional coalition against the establishment neocons and neolibs, who have already started becoming very friendly with each other, as evidenced by the current primary election shenanigans.

Truly impacting statements from people who have been in, or close to, positions of power, +great thinkers,denouncing the way things work up-top and the deficits and unsustainability of our global financial and political constructs. BUT - I certainly frowned at about 10% of the movie. Yes, fiat money is baaad. But do these reborn visionaries really suggest, we should go back to the gold standard? Because of the predictable grow mining of gold? REALLY? WTF? Civil society in my country just dodged a bullet, stopping big-money corporate interests, political corruption, etc that comes with opening up "the biggest gold mine in Europe". Vast landscapes destroyed, a cyanide lake for centuries to come, broken up communities, increased health risk in the area is what gold mining leaves behind. I invite the readers, and "visionaries" in this film to google the images of a few gold mines. Does his f*** up planet need more goldmines just to store yellow metal in vaults? Is this the forward-thinking way you suggest? An e-currency like Bitcoin, if regulated, can achieve exactly the same predictable economical stability effect like mined gold. So really, dig on that a bit, and welcome my rating of 3, that would otherwise have been a nine. This aspect is simply unforgivable.

This movie captures the real spirit of the time. Without conspiracy theories, Illuminati and even without radical ideas it presents the causes and solutions to the problems we're facing today. It is like the Zeitgeist movies but much more logical and insightful. Instead of provoking fear it provokes thought - going as far back in time as the collapse of the Roman empire and as far in the future as the collapse of the Western global empire. Which is actually just around the corner. There are no secret societies, aliens, demons or specific ethnic groups that are to blame. The problem is in the system and if we remove its head it will just grow another one. The problem is in all of us and all of us are to blame for tolerating the system. And change is not so difficult. The movie offers classical, realistic and tested solutions like the gold standard of money and taxation based on consumption and resource extraction instead of income. And there's optimism in the end. Just like Guthenberg changed the world and ended so much suffering with a simple invention - the printing press, another invention is now causing a new Reformation and Enlightenment. The internet is the new printing press and neoclassical capitalism is the new feudalism and the new Inquisition it is fighting. In the end ideas prevail over greed. Perhaps this time it will happen with less bloodshed.

When a documentary attempts to tackle the most important issues of a generation, from financial instability, to environmental degradation and terrorism, it really needs to be backed up with a lot of solid research. Unfortunately, Four Horsemen hopelessly fails to live up to its ambitions. It touches on everything from the decline of empires, to the expansion of credit and disastrous banking deregulation. It rightfully highlights the asset bubbles, the failures of foreign aid and the counter productive nature of much of the west's foreign policy. But touch is the generous word, as most issues are addressed with little more than a talking head tied together with some slick animation and stock footage. The film is strongest when stating the obvious, highlighting the offences of the banking industry, the predatory lending and illegal foreclosures. Indeed, when describing exactly what is wrong, Four Horsemen takes few risks and lands some critical blows, a welcome reintroduction for a debate that is most conspicuous by its absence. But the first warning sign for the film is when the entire history of human economics is framed in the terms of Classical versus Neoclassical, followed by the pushing of quite extreme Libertarian pet causes proposed as the only possible solutions. It marks wholly disingenuous connections regarding the glory days of the gold standard and becomes almost comical when it praises FDR on one hand and then claims 'income tax is inherently unconstitutional' on the other. A few quotes from the US Constitution and a lecture on the decline of morality, and the whole film starts to feel like a Ron Paul 2012 direct to YouTube creation. Then when casual remarks drop like: 'perhaps global warming isn't the greatest threat to our planet, but the depletion of resources', (a statement that so comprehensively against mainstream scientific opinion which contends we cannot afford to burn even the oil we have found), and the film starts to make Zeitgeist appear the model of impartial reasoning.When this is rapidly followed by 'all foreign aid is bad', suddenly the minuscule on screen presence of the most lauded guests, such highly respected development economic Ha-Joon Chang (who appears on screen just twice for a total of about sixty seconds), and the motives behind the recurring presence of the gold and silver traders becomes a little clearer. The producers of Four Horsemen may be well meaning, and who isn't rightfully outraged at the 'heads we win, tails you lose' attitude of Goldman Sachs and their ilk, or the ridiculous disconnect between real wages and real estate prices? I also doubt the proposition that 'we need more employee owned businesses' would ever lose a show of hands outside a GOP convention. But overflowing as the film is with justified indignation, the proposed solutions have all the hallmarks of a stock Libertarian: 'tax is theft, government is bad' economic thesis, albeit cleverly packaged to sneak in front of a left leaning cinema audience.