Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: DOWNFALL - THE CASE AGAINST BOEING [Sundance Film Festival 2022 - Virtual]
The aspect of the airline industry and most recently the grounding of the 737 Max after two air crashes seemed to traverse the news cycle with brevity but also a lingering aspect of corporate America trying to cover up mistakes. Director Rory Kennedy, always diverse in her subject matter, takes on this more straightforward factual but detailed element of what happened, how it was resolved and its reflection on the aviation industry. While certain recountings of these kinds of air disaster and investigations are a staple of History and the Discovery Channel, Kennedy obviously has a large canvas and cache to work with as well as the backing of Netflix behind her. This makes "Downfall: The Case Against Boeing" [Premieres} more dynamic for sure because the people who broke the stories are here speaking about it, the subject still fresh in their minds.
The immediacy that filmmakers like Kennedy and Alex Gibney bring to their respective films is not waiting for the poker to cool. The key is getting into the cauldron while the fire is hot since that is when passions are the highest. But in this way it can also be quite volatile with how reactions flow. The aspect though is that this story is fairly cut and dy. Boeing insomuch kept silent initially about what brought down the planes covering up a technical oversight in an attempt to cut corners to drive stock prices higher. The more ironic element which Kennedy nicely filters in is to show how the great have fallen. This is obviously a perspective on the style of corporate management (especially in the late 80s and into the 90s) which partially if not all together) destroyed the dignity and integrity of many companies. Of course press releases and the corporate PR machine can try to cover many things up. The fact that Kennedy includes certain audio recording and memos ((likely from the Wall Street Journal investigation) is so key because much of it cannot be refuted. "Downfall: The Case Against Boeing" though not moving nor eye opening in its own way does resound in its own way and speaks quite nicely to the truth. B
By Tim Wassberg
