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So the self-proclaimed drug dealer who claims to earn $500 to $600 a day and has three pets and grills but couldn't buy a car. But they could buy cigarettes, but not help the stumbling drunk family member. Are these our heroes?

One of the bigger disappointments of the year, this Grand Jury Prize-winning documentary is nothing more than a very long, very shabbily made home movie, albeit with some pretty heavy content. The film details one family's survival of Hurricane Katrina from inside the infamous Ninth Ward...which sounds like it could be great. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the footage is almost impossible to watch, and the movie amounts to what you might call a "found film"; almost as if a rudimentary film editor found a couple of Hi-8 tapes on the street, saw that there were some shittily shot handheld footage of the water getting higher in New Orleans, and decided to throw literally everything that was there onto the big screen. There are a couple interjections of archival news footage from such TV personalities as Paula Zahn, as well as a clip or two of President Bush saying dumb stuff...hardly a new approach for political documentaries. The rest is a barely structured hodgepodge of nauseating, amateurish filmmaking that is more suited to youtube than the movie theater. I understand why its received the attention it has. It's an issue film after all, and it's about poor people whom the President ignored (a particular attraction to the wealthy, white intellectuals of New York City and Sundance). But at the end of the day, no matter the content, a bad movie is still a bad movie, and this one was close to unbearable.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to land smack dab in the eye of a Hurricane? Well, the Sundance Film Festival hit Trouble the Water (2008), offers a terrifying front row seat to the power and destruction of the now infamous, hurricane Katrina. Trouble the Water embodies what it means to be a documentary in the truest sense. A gripping storyline is constucted around hours of home video taken by a struggling rap artist, who demonstrates an eerily prophetic sense of the impeding disaster and of her role in the documentation process. Trouble the Water avoids the cliches of other financially inflated documentaries by offering a raw and unappologetic first person point of view that puts fictional narratives such as, The Blaire Witch Project (1999) and Cloverfield (2008) to cinematic shame. This story is real and everything being documented has all too real consequences. However, the one drawback of the film comes not from heartfelt accounts of subjects, but from the not so subtle political diarrhea of the ethnographers. Filmmakers Carl Deal and Tia Lessin, pollute a wonderful collection of archival footage by creating an innaprpriate social villian, "White America." The real enemy in Trouble the Water is not the hurricane, the looters, or even the government, it's the white FEMA workers, white police officers, white navy guards, white mail carriers, white tour guides, and white utility workers. Deal and Lessin had the tools to make a great film, but are going to have to settle for just a good one, on account of their own prejudice. Regardless of the filmmaker's race, gender, or creed, Trouble the Water offers a textbook example of reverse racism. However, with everything else said and done, this documentary is worth watching. Just remember to be an active viewer and to not replace hate with more hate.

TROUBLE THE WATER
Directed by Carl Deal, Tia Lessin
Not Rated

Insightful, first hand account of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, culled from home video footage taken by two aspiring rappers who were too poor to flee the oncoming storm.

Unfocused at times, but ultimately a devastating indictment of apathy at an entire class of people left behind, and of their resilience in the face of danger.

:fresh: a remarkable story told with grace and grit. a must see for anyone who cares about america's future...

Trouble the Water:
***(out of 4)
"I love docs, and this year has brought us Man On Wire, Religulous, and Bigger Stronger Faster, and this one is also in that ball park. Its boring in spots but ultimatly very good."

What a fascinating documentary, the footage is amazing and it gives such a hands on depiction of Hurricane Katrina and what really went on. Very moving and even more so - disturbing. Candid and very convincingly made.

Some documentaries go beyond driving the point home...they pound it into your head with a jackhammer...that's not a good thing.

While there are more than enough documentaries displaying the government's incompetence, Trouble the Water is in a league of it's own, showing a New Orleans couple who try to return to normalcy after Hurricane Katrina. Surrounded by death, fear, and many feet of water, the inclosed victims receive almost no help from the National Guard, before,during,or after the storm. While some documentaries drive the point home, Trouble the Water drills the point deep into your skull, with combination of the profesionally-shot aftermath, actual news reports, and footage from the camcorder that was used to capture the hurricane first-hand. The film does seem to heavy-handed with it's views at times, but what do you expect from a political documentary? Should you see Trouble the Water? You should, it is an eye-opening doc.