Customer Reviews

McLibel [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.0 Import - United Kingdom ]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

A pretty good documentary, and a nice addition to the much funnier "Super Size Me". It may seem a little ridiculous that these two ordinary people would want to fight such a huge corporation on their own, but if you watch the DVD, you'll see that this couple truly believe in fighting only for their freedom of speech.

The best part about the DVD is that you can hear 27 minutes of secret audio taken during two meetings with some McDonalds big wigs.

McLibel is a documentary expose of the fast food industry and the legal systems that protect corporate giants from accountability. It is the story of two people in England who refused to say they were sorry for exposing correct information about McDonald's food production and employment practices. These two ordinary citizens were sued and they spent years defending themselves, with no money. It ended up being the longest court proceeding of its kind in British history.

I won't reveal the outcome. This film covers these two citizens over a period of YEARS and, although it is not a "blockbuster" level production, the foundation is excellent and I think it should be required viewing and material for discussion for all middle school, high school, and college students.

I have bought three copies of this movie and shared it with many friends. I hope others will do the same.

The film starts out in Star Wars fashion with the text: "A long time ago there was a company that made lots of money by selling bits of meat between two bits of bread. Many people were employed to put the meat between the bread and many animals were killed to be the meat. A friendly clown persuaded children to love the company. Some decades passed and all was well. The company became very, very rich. Richer even than many countries. And then some people wrote in their newspapers than eating lots of the meat and bread could make people ill. Other people said on television that too many trees had been cut down and that the workers were unhappy. This made the company very angry. The company looked around the world and saw that in England there was a special law that could stop people saying things the company didn't like. And make them say sorry."

This documentary is about a famous court case involving two activists and the McDonalds corporation in the UK. The film was made over a ten year period, involving you in the actual true life story as it unfolded. The documentary Super Size Me is a more professional film with a much larger budget that covers similar content and has a more exciting presentation. However, even though the film admittedly has somewhat of a "low budget" feel, it is still an important, informative and inspiring one.

I had never even heard about the McLibel lawsuit in the UK until seeing this movie. I found the movie to be very interesting, and really setup UK for a change. However, I think the documentary could have been a little more exciting. The re-enactment of the court proceedings is not that great. I know they were working with a very limited budget. I would have also like to have seen all the settlement meetings on the DVD. I do think this documentary is worth watching, and would advise residents of the US to watch it to learn about the historic case.

This film tells the tale of 2 people in London who got challenged by Mcdonalds for slander, and actually fought back. I thought this film was a decent look into British law, and to think that a coperation could squash the voice of decent by threatening to sue, unheard of in the US unless gross neglegence is in play. Besides, the effort corperation would have to go through to get all the little guys would be difficult in this country, I guess it must have payed off in Britain. Essentially, the two people were able to fight a big expensive legal team and win About half of the claims filed against them, not bad. But also, they proved a bigger point that the british system was flawed, and legal representation needed to be provided to these civil actions. The 2005 follow up show them at the European court aguing this point, and winning it. Neat story, worth a watch.

I agree with many of the reviews here that this is a VERY low budget film, but when you watch it and consider what this "low budget lawsuit" did to earn international freedom of speech, it's well worth it.

This is not a thrill ride docu, but the facts that it covers are fascinating and important. It interviews Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and Colin Cambell (The China Study), and it covers nearly 15 years of footage (the lenght of the case being covered here alone makes it worth the ride).

The extras are really good, too. Even a thirty minute version of the secret tapes with the meeting with the McD's execs are included here. If you enjoyed Fast Food Nation, you should give this a go. It's low budget, and yes the court room scenese are bad enough to be funny, but they are all read from the acutal court transcript. All in all, this is a very important docu about the most important subject facing many of us today--corporate and governmental abuse of power and wealth.

McLibel follows the incident in the UK where McDonalds filed a libel suit against two everyday citizens, gardener Helen Steel and postman David Morris. The two concerned citizens passed out pamphlets in front of a McDonalds restaurant attempting to inform customers of the downside of patronizing McDonalds, such as unhealthy food content, the corporations predilections for wasting natural resources, low wages, and animal cruelty in obtaining their meat sources.

McDonalds, using an existing UK libel law to order a public apology from the two citizens and stop the distribution of the pamphlets, never thought that these two everyday people would take the libel case all the way. Through court proceedings on the libel charges, where they were forced to defend themselves and McDonalds spent millions of dollars, all the way to managing to overturn the UK legal system to allow free speech against public corporations, this film covers their important story.

However, the film is done on a zero budget, and with the usual British enthusiasm (I'm being facetious) is about as interesting as watching my lawn grow. The re-enactments are cheesy, the interviews flat, the live footage boring, and the overall length far too long for what content the film had to offer.

Yes, this was an important part of freedom of speech stretching across the UK, but I would recommend looking the info up in a library rather than watching the film. I gave it two stars for the important content, but you would be better entertained searching out the information on your own. This is a low budget film with no finesse.

I am not a McDonald's sympathizer and in fact I have not even eaten at McDonald's in probably over five years.

It should come as no surprise that McDonald's, a global organization that for decades has been raking in the profits, is often times held in a negative light as being nothing more than a money grubbing organization making civilization fat. We have all heard the horror stories associated with fast food consumption and the business practices that fast food companies often employ.

So when the film McLibel came up as a recommendation in the trust ole' Netflix list, I figured what did I have to lose to gain some additional fodder for arguments relative to the Big Mac.

Answer to what did I have to lose: 85 minutes, the length of the movie.

McLibel was a terribly boring film attempting to highlight what seemed to be a somewhat interesting case that took place across the pond in England.

Directed by Franny Armstrong and Ken Loach, the movie tells the story of two British activists Helen Steel and Dave Morris who were part of a group that sought to promote social justice on several levels. Part of their mission was to attack McDonald's in terms of both their economic policies and their overreaching global endeavors, as well.

As any good activist would do, Steel and Morris took to the streets seeking to wage an information war against Ronald McDonald, Grimace and their pack of friends. With literature, leaflets and their voices, Steel and Morris wanted to disseminate as much information to the British general public as possible.

However, what ended up happening was some covert countering against their actions by individuals associated with McDonald's. Spies ended up coming to their meetings to learn more about the work that Steel and Morris were trying to do on their end.

The documentary gets its title from the fact that Steel and Morris were in fact sued by McDonald's for libel and slander, charges which the activists flat out denied. They felt as though it was more a case of McDonald's seeking to silence the voices of dissent more than it was that they were in fact in violation of any laws.

The movie jumps around a bit from interviews to sort of biographical or historical glimpses back to facts that preceded the making of the movie. The absolutely worst part of the documentary is when there are perhaps the most hokey reeenactments of the court room setting for the trial that McDonald's went through with against the activists. These dramatizations of the courtroom setting seem more as though they could be a skit from a British comedy show than a factual and professional documentary.

Nominated in 2005 as the Best British Documentary at the British Independent Film Awards, it is clear as to why the film was nominated and did not win the category. At the end of the film the viewer is sort of left with the notion that really nothing much was learned in the film and the overwhelming thought is, "Well, no duh." The film seems almost as though it was made as a way to thank Steel and Morris for their work more so than it was made to really show others factual information about the topic at hand.

Of course there was no reaching out to the other side of the table clearly evident in the film which makes me question why you would not want both sides of the issue. We learn plenty about Morris and Steel and about how great the director must feel they are but we do not get to see what McDonald's position was during the whole ordeal. Had this been done, I might feel a little bit differently about the overall quality of the film, except for those terrible courtroom reenactments.

McLibel sort of had the capability to be considered a somewhat decent film with at least the basis of a good factual story to tell. However, the film fell prey to becoming nothing more than what appears to be a bunch of friends making a film about how great they are. The quality of the filmmaking is quite poor and even that makes the film tank even more.

McLibel simply leaves this viewer wanting to know one thing: where's the beef?

I first saw this movie-doco on tv here in Australia some time ago. It has never been made widely available here, as best I could figure, so bought it through Amazon when I saw it here. Found it just as interesting 2nd time round, even more so as there were some parts of it I had forgotten about.

Inspiring on a story level, if less so on a film-making level.

Two working class British activists are sued by McDonald's for a pamphlet they put out accusing McDonalds of making unhealthy foods, exploiting its workers, etc. Under the archaic British libel laws, all the burden of proof is on the defendants, and somehow these two plucky, broke (if occasionally annoyingly naïve) nobodies fight McDonalds to a stalemate in court, while costing McDonald's millions in legal fees, and causing them an absolute PR disaster.

While the story is terrific, the re-enactments, especially of the courtroom scenes are awkward, and the over simplistic idealism of some of the couples' political theory (`why can't McDonald's simply give half of it's profits to their workers?') can be a bit much to take.

Still, it's good to see something that makes you realize the little guy can win now and again. Worth it for
that bit of uplift and inspiration in a cynical time