Greedy Lying Bastards

Activist Craig Scott Rosebraugh steps into the documentary game with this directorial debut, unfortunately, just another one of those smarmy, quasi-journalistic, sign-this-petition spiels. Rosebraugh's Al Franken-style title only highlights his comparative humorlessness, without even elaborating what the movie's really about, which is the pernicious political influence of moneyed climate-change deniers (and their big-energy benefactors). It's the usual talking heads and peppy infographics, and it'll be catnip for viewers already inclined to indignation about the greedy lying bastards who value profits over planet health. But Rosebraugh's narration seems more smug than sincere—like a borrowed voice, or one synthesized from those of all the similar documentaries whose style he apes. Worse, his appetite for ironic scenes of weather-wrought catastrophe verges on its own kind of insensitive opportunism. Certainly, the chill of schadenfreude alone won't be enough to cool global warming down.