"The Killing Ground" is one of those documentaries that as it unfolds you keep asking to yourself: "Is this America?". What does it
cover? The disposal of toxic waste on the soil, contaminating several areas across U. S. and becoming a huge dangerous issues to its population
with threats and realities of cancer and other diseases, and how environmental agencies and federal government manage to not help much the
people neither the affected areas, and as people get sick and die, the poluting companies save their money - sometimes they're forced to spend
a little to fix their damage or come up with clean solutions.
Again, is this America? Cause when you watch a piece like this and see how devastating, shocking and twisted those companies act and work
against their own environment and people, you expect that from under-developed nations, and the alarming number of cases covered in mere 50
minutes with a then final prospect of hundreds of other cases, makes you wonder about everything. And it's all about the profit, cutting costs
and ignorance. And in the end no one's safe, people and the environment go to waste.
It's an important piece in seeing the tragic reality faced by many Americans up until that point, it covers a handful of cases (with a big
highlight to the Love Canal disaster) and it also covers the reaction from environmentalists and the people as well. Obvious that many of the
featured cases prolonged, got worse and/or were "solved" in court, and for the curious minds you'll spend a lot of time researching about the
aftermath of them all - the real cases presented in films such as "A Civil Action" and "Erin Brockovich" though already happening at that time
aren't shown here.
It's a good film but not very, as it is a little distracting and repetitive with its presentation; but very objective of
what it wants to inform, if not alarm its audience that the danger of toxic waste and its disposal could be located anywhere in America. It's the
kind of viewing that will leave you hopeless for the mankind, even though it all happened nearly 50 years ago - still happens in some places. 8/10.
