'11th Hour' shows world's problems heating up
"The 11th Hour"
3 stars
out of four
Opens today
Narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio.
Written and directed by Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners. Produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, Peterson, Conners, Chuck Castleberry, Brian Gerber and Pierre Andre Senizergues. At the Century Centre Cinema in Chicago and the Evanston CineArts 6. A Warner Independent Pictures release. Rated PG. Running time: 91 minutes.
Leonardo DiCaprio seems to have a penchant for catastrophes. In the new documentary "The 11th Hour," he reveals it again.
"Titanic" saw Leo going down, spectacularly, with the ship. But in "11th Hour," which he co-produced and narrates, the socially conscious heartthrob actor faces a real-life contemporary disaster as the spokesman for a massive contemplation of a planetary shipwreck.
This movie is about something that, according to many experts, faces us all: the gradual Industrial Age poisoning of our planet. Painstakingly, with lots of authoritative testimony, "11th Hour" examines the damaging effects of the climate changes wrought over the last century or so by greed-driven, manmade excesses.
It is a grave and terrifying subject. Written and directed by the sister team of Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners, "11th Hour" presents a view of Earth and its possible fate that will be familiar to many, but remains scary each time you see it.
The filmmakers, with admirable clarity, give us the vision again. We see or imagine our oceans and land ravaged by global warming and pollution, our fossil fuel supplies dwindling, our protective ozone layer battered, weather systems going crazy, temperatures rising, ice caps shrinking, species facing extinction and humanity on the brink of ecological crisis.
This story has been told before, memorably if less far-rangingly by Al Gore in 2006's "An Inconvenient Truth." But it never fails to raise chills.
The filmmaking here is ordinary, the usual mix of archival and location footage, montages and talking heads. Even so, the theme is so disturbing and the heads so knowledgeable that your time is never wasted.
The Conners sisters assemble more than 50 interviewees -- a roster of scientists, ecological crusaders and leaders that includes Stephen Hawking, Mikhail Gorbachev, Bill McKibben and ex-CIA director James Woolsey -- to present the case.
Missing are the usual antagonists: the industrial apologists and counter-experts ready to dismiss the evidence as stacked, the doomsayers as hysterics and tree-huggers, and DiCaprio as another limousine liberal who should shut up and act. (Or maybe shut up and drown.)
I admit I missed that crowd a little. Cable TV news has so accustomed us to inane right-vs.-left screamfests and donnybrooks that one almost expects some glumly sarcastic gadfly to show up to try to demolish the evidence, deny global warming and put in a good word for toxic waste.
Maybe those critics can mount their direct response later on, in a movie called "Dr. Strange-Oil, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Pollution."
But I doubt the gadflies would have added much. If you're looking for the spurious "objectivity" of TV news and its on-air brouhahas, you won't find it here. "11th Hour" isn't interested in the opposing arguments, but in marshalling the evidence and, in a surprisingly affirmative last act, suggesting solutions.
There, finally, the talking heads discuss ways out of the mess, suggesting more ecological awareness, policy changes, cleanups and alternative energy sources.
"All of the forces sweeping over the planet are the forces created by human beings," sums up the National Geographic Society's Wade Davis. "And if human beings are the source of the problem, we can be the foundation for the solution."
"11th Hour" isn't a great film, but if audiences pay attention, it might help contribute to a lasting after-affect. As for DiCaprio, even though I prefer him as an actor, I'm happy to see him spending his off-time as an activist.
The planet needs all the friends it can get.