Fast, Cheap & Out of Control

A study in how powerful editing is. Creates a lot out of a little.

The robotics engineer was fascinating (I wanted to see more of those robots!), the mole rat specialist was also really interesting, the bits with the topiary gardener would have been boring if they didn't seem so ridiculously lame, detached and unrelated (inducing some laughs even), and the animal tamer I just wished would get eaten alive for his distasteful practice and the miserable condition the lions were in. I think Morris hoped everything would get pulled together by analogy.

One of the few documentaries that has managed to hold my attention. The four men initially seem completely unconnected to each other, but through some brilliant editing a much deeper, much subtler picture emerges. A must-watch.

Almost comes together well enough, just almost. It should have been exclusively on the robotics and mammal man, with the horrid animal trainer cut right out, despite the synchronicity of it all. And I kept forgetting the gardener was even in this until another of his small segments regrettably resurfaces. The flow is just not right; a good 5-10 minutes must have been used on the superfluous circus stunt shots.

While the topics tend to cross paths thanks to some fancy editing, the film ultimately feels uncomfortably disjointed. Robert Richardson shoots some memorable imagery, at least.

I LIKED IT WHEN KITTY PUT ITS PAW IN THE WATER AND THEN LICKED IT.

Those poor lions :( Son of a bitch, I wanted to hear more about naked mole rats.

the dork in the ridiculous bowtie who's so besotted with the ugliest most insectile mammals on the planet that by the end he's all but married them, i have boundless affection for that dude.

Occasionally interesting, but on the whole not really worthwhile. The topiary guy was especially useless, contributing almost nothing of substance. Morris went overboard with the stock footage, bloating the movie by at least 10 minutes, perhaps closer to 20. The musical score was also annoyingly intrusive.

Interesting although it appears to aspire to something far more engaging than it is, a kind of Herzog-lite. Very lite. Sometimes I think it's good to watch a film like this, if only to develop an appreciation for more successfully executed films which aim for the apprehension by the audience of some synthetic concept that is not explicit. Quite a fine balancing act between simplicity and complexity, which Morris here calculates a bit awry.

At first the juxtaposition of the 4 different characters, sets of imagery and ideas was fascinating, creative and interesting - after 30-45 minutes I was really no longer interested...

Another of Errol Morris's refreshingly unconventional documentaries

A documentary that does absolutely nothing. Probably made fast, cheap and without much control.

Human beings are wondrous creatures.

Editing together four rather unrelated pieces into a pretty coherent whole like this is rather impressive, and having found three of the film's four subjects to be thoroughly intriguing I quite enjoyed the experience. Even so, it doesn't always fit together as well as I would have liked, sometimes feeling unfocused or repetitive.

Not my style at all, found it unwatchable but harmless in its way so I didn't give it a rockbottom score

Inspired madness abound!

I have no idea what this was about. Weird but not very wonderful.

Reminded me of Errol's first film, Gates of Heaven, but this time he had much more interesting material to work with. The soundtrack was a bit overbearing and he added a lot of stuff in with stock footage just to make it feature length, some of it was unnecessary. Pretty interesting but a forgettable film from the legendary documentarian.

A deceptively profound film.

Errol Morris is best when keeping to one subject rather than sewing together a wayward cinematic quilt constructed from his cadre of nefarious weirdos. However, there's still some real fun in this film, particularly as it pertains to the life of the bow-tied child snatcher.