The new film “Collapse” should play as part of a double feature alongside either “The Road” or “The Book of Eli.”
The documentary follows a first-rate conspiracy theorist describing in pinpoint detail why we’re all doomed.
It’s all about the oil – or lack thereof – in the not too distant future.
It’s hard to take much of what muckraker Michael Ruppert says seriously.
But if any of the dots he’s meticulously connected come to pass we’re all in big trouble.
“Collapse” is simply a one-sided conversation with Ruppert, a former LAPD detective and founder of the newsletter From the Wilderness.
He’s seen it all as the son of a family wedded to the government’s intelligence agencies and, later, as a cop trying to expose CIA drug peddling operations. He has plenty to say, and none of it is pretty.
We’re running out of oil, he declares in between cigarette puffs. And if the oil goes, so does society since nearly every part of our world is made of, or powered by, black gold.
Social chaos will surely follow, and he’s not too optimistic about how humanity will bounce back once the oil spigots run dry.
The film makes no attempt to balance his account, to dig into his laundry list of charges against the U.S. government. Leave that to others. As a visual testimony, it’s still compelling, and the sheer lack of opposing views makes the film honest in a way other one-sided documentaries aren’t.
But to swallow conspiracy after conspiracy takes its toll.
Dozens of questions are left unanswered. Why would civilization run headfirst toward its own collapse? If the evil Dick Cheney and his energy cabal know oil is running out, why scramble for the few last drops rather than find a replacement energy source?
Director Chris Smith (“American Movie”) lets Ruppert talk … and talk … and only toward the end of the film does Smith throws a few audible questions his way. But Ruppert is fascinating all the same. Facts, figures and conspiracies spill out of him in an almost mesmerizing fashion.
The conversation lets him reveal more about himself than he probably could imagine. He’s alternately smug and emotional, a whistle blower who can’t put the whistle down for even a moment.
Ruppert doesn’t fit neatly into an ideological box, although he despises the Bush administration and feels President Barack Obama has no real chance of reversing course.
“Collapse” is infuriating and frightening, the accumulated ramblings of a man you’d probably steer clear of at a cocktail party, but someone who’s opinions will be impossible to forget all the same.
NOTE: “Collapse” is available on most cable providers (Time Warner, Comcast, Verizon) through the VOD/Movies on Demand option through Feb. 21st.
(Photo: “Collapse” features a fascinating monologue from Michael Ruppert, a man who claims modern society is doomed.)
Related posts:
on 
on 
on 
on 
