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>> Leonardo DiCaprio’s The 11th Hour spells
out global warming is trashing the planet

by MATTHEW HAYS

There’s certainly an aura of been there, done that to the latest feature-length doc on the environment and global warming, The 11th Hour. It’s a good film, don’t get me wrong—and there’s plenty of information packed into its 95 minutes. But we have felt the nudge of this carbon footprint before. This one is also a bit of a star vehicle. It’s produced and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, and there’s something fitting about someone this hot telling us how hot the planet is getting.

Dumb jokes aside, The 11th Hour moves along at a gallop, bombarding us with intellectual talking heads—everyone from Stephen Hawking to David Suzuki to Mikhail Gorbachev—all of who speak with great authority about the calamity humans are causing on the planet. With the earth’s temperature rising at such an alarming rate, they warn, the human species could well face extinction within a few generations. Forests are being replaced by deserts, the polar ice caps are melting and Katrina-like storms will soon be the norm.

Directors Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners rightly point fingers at the oil lobby, who are protecting trillions of dollars in profit while keeping their Texas tea flowing. A great 60 Minutes moment is replayed, in which an environmentalist discusses having his reports to the White House edited by a former lobbyist for the oil companies who had been hired by the Bush administration.

But a nagging question hangs over all of these docs. It’s a point that’s been brought up in relation to Michael Moore’s work: what good are all these docs if only Greenpeace members are heading out to see them? Does anyone really believe that Conservatives or Republicans would actually buy a ticket to one of these films? They’re great movies, but as propaganda, they probably fail, because, I suspect, that only the converted will attend.

The 11th Hour does offer some hope in its final third, showing us new technologies and novel ideas around solar power. But I still found it depressing. So long as there are people in this world who are rancid, stupid, selfish and toxic enough to cast a vote for Bush or Harper, we’re doomed.

The 11th Hour opens
this Friday, Aug. 31

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