This review of “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing” was first published on January 21 after the film’s premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.
“Downfall: The Case Against Boeing” is a work of impressive investigative cinema. But the most compelling aspect of Rory Kennedy’s damning documentary isn’t really about Boeing at all. It’s the intimation that this specific account of corporate malfeasance is just one chapter in a far bigger book.
Kennedy and writers Mark Bailey and Keven McAlester are no strangers to the stain of institutionalized corruption. She and Bailey, her husband, worked together on 2007’s Emmy-winning “Ghosts of Abu Ghraib”; all three made the 2014 Oscar nominee “Last Days in Vietnam.”
Their choice to focus so tightly on a micro-scenario here does strand us, occasionally, in the weeds of detail. But it’s tough to watch such a flatly incriminatory report without taking a macro view of society’s villains and heroes.
“Downfall: The Case Against Boeing” is a work of impressive investigative cinema. But the most compelling aspect of Rory Kennedy’s damning documentary isn’t really about Boeing at all. It’s the intimation that this specific account of corporate malfeasance is just one chapter in a far bigger book.
Kennedy and writers Mark Bailey and Keven McAlester are no strangers to the stain of institutionalized corruption. She and Bailey, her husband, worked together on 2007’s Emmy-winning “Ghosts of Abu Ghraib”; all three made the 2014 Oscar nominee “Last Days in Vietnam.”
Their choice to focus so tightly on a micro-scenario here does strand us, occasionally, in the weeds of detail. But it’s tough to watch such a flatly incriminatory report without taking a macro view of society’s villains and heroes.
- 2/17/2022
- by Elizabeth Weitzman
- The Wrap
On Oct. 29, 2018, Indonesian carrier Lion Air’s Flight 610 crashed into the Java Sea shortly after takeoff. Nineteen weeks later, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, headed to Kenya, also crashed, leaving a deep gouge in a field near the Addis Abba Bole Airport. All told, 346 passengers and crew were killed. Both planes were new Boeing 737-Maxes. “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing” — which premiered at the virtual Sundance Film Festival — is the riveting, often rending tale of those crashes and the jet that links them.
With the eloquent testimony of family members; aviation industry experts; former Boeing engineers and quality control employees, plus a squadron of commercial airline pilots — including, arguably the nation’s most trusted, Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger — director Rory Kennedy not only builds a case against Boeing but offers an object lesson in the tragic consequences of corporate greed and hubris.
When Boeing unveiled the retooled 737 Max, it promised airlines that the...
With the eloquent testimony of family members; aviation industry experts; former Boeing engineers and quality control employees, plus a squadron of commercial airline pilots — including, arguably the nation’s most trusted, Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger — director Rory Kennedy not only builds a case against Boeing but offers an object lesson in the tragic consequences of corporate greed and hubris.
When Boeing unveiled the retooled 737 Max, it promised airlines that the...
- 1/27/2022
- by Lisa Kennedy
- Variety Film + TV
In less than a month, Norah O’Donnell will start delivering the headlines at “CBS Evening News” – and, most likely, start generating a few of her own.
CBS News plans to launch a re-tooled “CBS Evening News” anchored by O’Donnell on July 15th, part of the network’s ambitious plans to overhaul its morning and evening standbys and get more competitive with rivals. She will be just the second woman at CBS News to lead the venerable program solo and will play an instrumental role in a big bet by the network, which plans to move O’Donnell and the program to Washington, D.C. from New York City at some point in the fall.
The network offered a peek at how it will position O’Donnell’s tenure behind the evening-news desk Sunday evening with a promo that aired during “60 Minutes.”
O’Donnell “has traveled the world reporting...
CBS News plans to launch a re-tooled “CBS Evening News” anchored by O’Donnell on July 15th, part of the network’s ambitious plans to overhaul its morning and evening standbys and get more competitive with rivals. She will be just the second woman at CBS News to lead the venerable program solo and will play an instrumental role in a big bet by the network, which plans to move O’Donnell and the program to Washington, D.C. from New York City at some point in the fall.
The network offered a peek at how it will position O’Donnell’s tenure behind the evening-news desk Sunday evening with a promo that aired during “60 Minutes.”
O’Donnell “has traveled the world reporting...
- 6/23/2019
- by Brian Steinberg
- Variety Film + TV
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