Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack’s doc “OilCrash” is an informative, shocking and ultimately frustrating look at how the citizens of planet earth continue to rip through our most valuable and most non-renewable natural resource: oil. Films like this are so important in this age of information distortion, yet there’s so much going on here, it’s hard to keep up.
“OilCrash” is part Chicken Little and part factual presentation. Now, don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with someone shouting “the sky is falling!” when it’s true, as it is here. However after the first two or three people mention how ultimately screwed we are, everyone else just seems to echo the same statement. That issue is unsolvable because unless you’re stupid or profiting right now off of oil, you have to admit we’re on a downward slide in terms of how much oil is left. There’s only one side to this argument and that creates an issue for the film.
What I liked best about “OilCrash” is Gelpke and McCormack get information from all over the place. Oil manufacturers, oil workers, political activists and political advisors. It doesn’t seem like the filmmakers are ever pushing a personal agenda as so many docs these days do. The facts are, we’re running out of oil and we really don’t have any viable backup plan. There’s no ands, ifs or buts about it. Yet by the end of the film I felt as though the information here as totally valid and invaluable as it is, just keeps coming at you. So much so I felt like I had sat through a brutal math lecture. All that aside, I do think people need to see this movie to understand where we’re headed due to wasteful and greedy pigheadedness. Yeah, we’re pointing at you Mr. Hummer driver and you, Mr. Oil Baron.
