Freakonomics (2010)
Summary
Genre: DocumentaryGoodies:
+ Interesting editing and presentation of findingsBaddies:
- Odd sections of the film (sumo wrestling?), - Confusing to follow at timesFREAKONOMICS is the highly anticipated film version of the phenomenally bestselling book about incentives-based thinking by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. Like the book, the film examines human behavior with provocative and sometimes hilarious case studies, bringing together a dream team of filmmakers responsible for some of the most acclaimed and entertaining documentaries in recent years.
Sometimes it is difficult to rate a documentary because it seems like you are rating the content presented – and whereas Freakonomics (in my opinion) is a lot of theory based on data – correlative style. With that said, I thought it was fascinating, especially the part about incentives in education. Will giving teenagers money for do well inspire them to do better? Well, a little, but not as much as you’d expect. I do think the film took too much time on a single subject, especially the bit on corruption in sumo wrestling – at a certain point – we got it, and they kept going. I would’ve liked to have seen more segments that were shorter, but still hit the main points of what they were trying to present. Also, the style was a little weird too – for example, the intros to the segments were at least 1 – 2 minutes long (for a title sequence) that was way too long – in fact, they were so long, I was confused that they were even title sequences. Overall, the information was good and I had fun watching it, but it could have worked in a different (and shorter) mode per segment.
Have you ever read the book? I read it a few years ago, didn’t know it was a movie now, very cool.
Yeah, the book is probably a lot better, I’m gonna give it a try one of these days.
Yeah, I didn’t realize there was a film either.. the book is great