Four Horsemen

I had the opportunity to go to the Four Horsemen UK premiere in London and I've been positively surprised.

The documentary is done in an artistic way and the animations very pleasant to watch. So as soon as the film starts you are captivated by its energy. Nothing to see with some boring and interminable documentary.

The different interviewees speak out without sensationalism. Although the film has an opinion, it is also full of irrefutable facts. And you don't need to have a high level of economics knowledge because everything is done to make understanding some complex concepts.

So this documentary can touch everybody. As well the people who question about the current or future problems in the world that people who are just interested in good documentary features.

I can just advise you to watch it! First because the film rocks and also because this is the kind of film which leaves you plenty of ideas.

FOUR HORSEMEN is an interesting documentary, well worth a watch for most..

As reviewers have mentioned, yes, it does try to cover a few too many topics in just over 90 minutes. But for the average person, a lot of the longer, more conspiratorial, more biased 'world order' YouTube documentaries are far too long and convoluted.

Stylistically, it won some plus points with me for the smooth, easy to understand narration, but lost some for, as others have said, the slight lack of cohesion between sections, points and arguments.

One last downside - on reflection, although I enjoyed the upbeat tone of the conclusion in that 'all is not lost, we can actually change things', I agree with others that the solutions put forward are potentially not viable. That said, I think some reviewers denigrate it unfairly, a documentary is meant to document the truth and put forward observations, a narrative - the documentary makers (especially these who are not huge mainstream corporates) do not make the policy, and are not even influencing those who do, so I think it's acceptable for them to put forward suggestions, right or wrong, for the viewer to look into.

FOR THE POSITIVES! Overall, this documentary should probably be, in part at least, viewed by 90% of western civilisation who are not in finance or government and have no idea that this is going on. Those of you watching this or planning on it probably already have an idea, but think of how many around you really believe what their politicians tell them - we all know plenty.

Whether you agree with every opinion demonstrated or not, it's an eye-opening and worthy use of 90 minutes.

There are all sorts of rumours flying about as to the authorship of this film.

Read the article: 'A Tale Of Plagiarism – I Wrote One Of The Year's Most Acclaimed Documentaries, Not That You'd Know It' on the Bleeding Cool website.

No matter, as to someone who doesn't understand finance but is interested, this is a great documentary.

Robert Zak, of Best For Film describes Four Horsemen as 'one of the clearest and most demystifying attempts at guiding us through the alien landscape of economics.'

Watch an extract of the film by going to YouTube and searching Fiat Money.

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.

Four Horsemen is an excellent overview of what's been happening to our capitalist system, and how it has devolved into a dysfunctional state over the past few decades.

This isn't a deep dive - it's an unabashedly high-level summary, but a very good one. It methodically covers all the symptoms of capitalism's ailing status quo, ultimately touching on most of the world's problems - inequality, environmental collapse, poverty, etc. There's some particularly interesting historical perspective, showing how what we call 'capitalism' has changed dramatically over the past century or more. All the interviewees are knowledgeable and do a great job of clarifying topics that are utterly opaque to most of us.

After watching Four Horsemen, you can't help feeling you're at least beginning to understand what's gone wrong, and what needs to happen in order to get things back on track.

The movie makes no rash claims - all the details are either common knowledge or easily verified. Nor does Four Horsemen advocate radical change. It suggests not a rejection of capitalism, but subtle adjustments to capitalism that would make it operate more productively, with greater benefit to our society as a whole.

Four Horsemen is both thought-provoking and an enjoyable watch. Viewers already familiar with the material will appreciate the way Four Horsemen puts it all into better focus. Viewers who haven't been following economics and tend to be baffled by today's shifting politics will find Four Horsemen a painless first step in making sense of today's world situation. Highly recommended.