Four Horsemen

A really good and worthwhile documentary that scratches the surface and point out directions. It's all over the Internet by now so take your time and rewind and dig deeper on your own. The gold standard and abolishing of income taxes might be areas that can be further explained, and the terrorist section needs to take religious fanatism into account.

It's most important message is that we all need to understand the current unsustainable economic system and collectively take responsibility and start the changes from beneath.

And as a side note: I don't know what film user "rune-andresen" have seen, but it can't have been this one.

The Corporation-- seen it, End of Poverty --Seen it. Inside Job--seen it This social conscious genre is starting to all having in the same exact people saying the same exact things done the same exact tired way. Even the cover art is like the Corporation. How many more films on Sub-prime immorality?

The Voice over and the script for the narration is solid but let down by the format. And the same face contribute very little to the story to make this unique. The best themes seem under explored. The old ones over explored (again).

Someone said it was shot on a budget, but you do not need much money to shoot talking heads on a black background. How many times will this try cookie cutter filmmaking format visit us?

"Four Horsemen" is the debut feature from writer and director Ross Ashcroft and the four parts of this documentary address the banking crisis, the terrorism threat, worldwide poverty and ecological collapse respectively. While worthy, well-intentioned and (mostly) well-evidenced, for the non-political, this critique of rampant capitalism is probably heavy going with lots of talking heads - no less than 23 experts, including many senior economists and academics, express their trenchant views.

The film seems to have been popular in film festivals and indeed I saw it at the first London Labour Film Festival where it was applauded at the end, but it has some major deficiencies.

First, it is overly ambitious in scope and should perhaps have concentrated simply on the crisis of the banking sector. The links between the four threats were not always made clear and the section on terrorism was particularly weak and over simplistic. Second, the policies promulgated at the end - while rooted in a pro-capitalist position intended to be 'realistic' - involve some outrageously fanciful notions such as returning to a gold standard and abolishing income tax. I would like to know more about Ross Ashcroft and the funding of this work which might explain the source of these odd notions. Third, at no point in either the analysis or the prescription does the film acknowledge that economic and societal change does not start with institutional reform but with the organisation of workers, consumers and citizens. Real change comes through people working together in political parties, trade unions, pressure groups, and social movements.

For all these weaknesses, "Four Horsemen" does make you think and will engender much-needed debate about the urgent need to reform radically our ideas on how we create, consume and distribute wealth and how we regulate and control the institutions involved.

There's so much in 4 HORSEMEN. Yes it is talk-heavy, very densely- presented in places but it makes brilliant connections.

It's like the big-idea documentaries by Adam Curtis. It's provocative and deliberately big picture. Some of the above crits feel petty in this regard, the point is to stay global.

It's also gripping & urgent. It squares up to the biggest crisis we're facing and has much to say that is fresh.

Surprisingly, it was also been made in the UK on a shoestring. Not that you could tell.

HIGHLY, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

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.