Product Details

• Actors: Pablo Fajardo, Luis Yanza, Steven Donziger
• Directors: Joe Berlinger
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: FIRST RUN FEATURES
• DVD Release Date: February 23, 2010
• Run Time: 105 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B002N7W3IA
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #59,336 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Crude" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Three years in the making, this cinéma-vérité feature from acclaimed filmmaker Joe Berlinger (Brother's Keeper, Paradise Lost, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster) is the epic story of one of the largest and most controversial legal cases on the planet. An inside look at the infamous $27 billion "Amazon Chernobyl" case, Crude is a real-life high stakes legal drama set against a backdrop of the environmental movement, global politics, celebrity activism, human rights advocacy, the media, multinational corporate power, and rapidly-disappearing indigenous cultures. Presenting a complex situation from multiple viewpoints, the film subverts the conventions of advocacy filmmaking as it examines a complicated situation from all angles while bringing an important story of environmental peril and human suffering into focus.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Chevron has the same mess here in Texas!, January 14, 2010

By 

Elizabeth Todd Burns "Rancho Los Malulos" (Santa Elena, Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Crude (DVD)

This movie is so well done! The film lets the people involved speak for themselves. I just love watching the Chevron attorneys with their, "That's our story, we are sticking to it. You have no proof." defense. I live on a 38,000 acre ranch in South Texas where Texaco has operated since 1935 and Chevron Texaco continues to operate here. They are the only operators on their lease. We have the same pits that Ecuador has. There are sick people across Railroad Commission District #4. The municipal water supplies are full of volatile organics and other chemicals common in oilfield produced water. Texaco and ExxonMobil and a few other majors did the exact same practices in South Texas as they did in Ecuador. We deal with the stone faced arrogant oil company lawyers on a daily basis. They just lie endlessly. I hope that other people around the world see this movie and see how the companies behave. They didn't clean anything up in South Texas. People are sick here, too. I'm so glad that this movie was made and made well. People will realize that Chevron has a bigger mess than Ecuador. They need to clean up their mess and be truthful to their stockholders. Great work!

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent job on this documentary!, January 23, 2010

By 

S. Wilson "TXsharon" (Decatur, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Crude (DVD)

It's hard for me to know what to say about what I saw in this film. I'm deeply ashamed that our lifestyle could cause such suffering and destruction in other countries but the concept is not new to me because I know about what Shell has done in Nigeria. There is a great deal of heartbreak and much that causes shame in this movie. At the same time, It's uplifting to see Pablo Fajardo, a humble man from a fiscally poor but morally wealthy family, take on one of the most complicated cases in history in true David versus Goliath style.

The Ecuadorian people tell their own story in their own words from their homes and their forest. At first glimpse, you might think that these people are poor but before Texaco contaminated their world, they had everything they needed to live a simple life abundant with gifts from nature.

Texaco was fined $27 Billion for destroying this Ecuadorian Rain Forest but they have said they will never pay it.

The scientific expert working on this case says that this could never happen in the United States but he is dead wrong. As Elizabeth Burns said, it has happened and it continues to happen every day.

I live on top of the Barnett Shale in Wise County in North Texas. I have a blog, Bluedaze: DRILLING REFORM FOR TEXAS, where I document industry abuses such as burying the waste pits or simply abandoning them. Like Elizabeth Burns, I have dozens of videos and hundreds of pictures. Come see for yourself.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Bang your head against the wall, but apathy is worse", March 31, 2010

By 

J. L LaRegina "Jim LaRegina" (New Jersey) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Crude (DVD)

In the 2009 documentary CRUDE Steve Donziger, attorney for the people of Ecuador suing Chevron over dumping more than eighteen billion gallons of toxic waste into their rainforest, questions the chance of winning. While Mr. Donziger does not doubt Chevron is guilty, he wonders if the oil company's money and government connections are so great that justice is only for those who can afford it.

CRUDE places you in a ringside seat as the Ecuadorians and he make their case. Chevron officials and lawyers deny either causing the damage or its existence, reminding you of YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN's Marty Feldman asking Gene Wilder, "What hump?"

It feels helpless watching Ecuadorian children die of cancer, but as CRUDE documents, grassroots organizing grows out of disease-causing hydrocarbons in the country's soil and water. The film ends with the litigation against Chevron far from over, but attracting the support of everyone from Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa to rainforest advocates Sting and Trudie Styler, the plaintiffs may have more than just faith and hope on their side. If nothing else, it beats going down without a fight.

See CRUDE.