User Reviews

This movie is one of many important messages that I predict will go largely ignored. It is evident that Oil is largely in control of the world energy market, not just the United States, after the Oil companies posted record profits during the most recent global economic crises that was blamed on the housing and banking industries.

So, we bailed out banks who we blamed the crises on and we bailed out the autos who work with oil companies to sell us vehicles that pollute our environment and cost us more to maintain, while 120 years of rumors, patents, companies, and mysterious mafia-like deaths happen all around inventors of cleaner and more sustainable transportation. We are constantly training and funding our enemies and paying for our problems to worsen. Why can a business proposition not be made to the American consumers that can demonstrate an ROI that would compel them to change their petroleum consumption? It seems like a concise and clear PERSONAL action plan is what is missing in all of this messaging. Show your neighbor how she can save $X over the next three years by making a personal investment in cleaner energy, and then the entire movement will "go viral" as the kids say. Don't even talk about any environmental benefits, but you can talk about "the terrorists" a little... everybody would love to hear that they would be taking from the top line revenue of the bad guys, I imagine (extra bonus if you noticed the economic terrorists in London, Houston, and Washington that were implied.)

Now I'm very much against spoilers, but my comment on this movie must include one, so you've been doubly-warned: this movie attempts to address not only the egregious atrocities of the Oil industry, but tries to gently introduce the fact that we are the problem. You and I fail to act. We are comfortable consuming the pollutants that are taking away our financial means to feel empowerment and at liberty to participate, or certainly instigate, social change. How does the film do this? Well, the narrator almost says it a couple of times. What I can't stop laughing about is the rather lame attempt to rally up a feel good "we believe in the people... we're ready to change and the time is now" finale. It tried to end on an emotional note that was rather vacuous and felt to me as discrediting to a documentary that purports to be uncovering the facts about a clandestine injustice affecting everyone. They should know on a $500,000 budget that very few people are going to watch this movie that don't already know about the problem, or perhaps wouldn't care enough in the first place to already be looking for an answer on how to act. They give a few ideas (I'm not that much of a spoiler), but why the rah, rah, rah ending? Why not a step-by-step instruction plan with a promise to be driving by every day to check on you to make sure you are doing the right thing? Threaten the American public to do what you want. Seems like it worked for Big Oil.

But seriously: this film (and writing this review) have given me some ideas on how to act and I'm looking forward to further research. Don't make the mistake in thinking Rockefeller is more responsible than Bush, just don't forget that you're the one buying their product and paying their salary.

If your automobile uses fuel, which by all means does unless you are already using an electric vehicle, then you should watch a series of movies(1. What is an Electric car, 2. FUEL... ) to help you understand the technology evolution for meeting the energy demand of automobiles. A common concern of all these movies is the oil prices history with focus on next generation automobiles and fuels. The movie just targets one or few oil companies with in America holding them responsible for the rise and fall of oil prices, a similar fate is applicable to the oil companies in the rest of the world. Also it should have focused more on the emissions by the gasoline powered automobiles. The technology invention, by the engineers of these oil companies, which could multiply the mileage of early automobiles many folds, is doubtable. If at all the oil companies could invent higher mileage automobiles, then there entry in to auto industry would have created history and Shell Motors(if incorporated) would have today been World's No.1 auto maker beating GM, Ford, Toyota and other auto companies. If at all the oil companies could invent higher mileage automobiles, what was the motor industry doing all these days, they should have invented motors that can give mileage of 1000mpg or simply run on water. But since no such invention was/is really possible and before we run out of fossil fuel we need to disinvest from the non-renewable oil market and begin investing in renewable electric energy market. The addition is after towards motor vehicles not oil. The oil-industry still has the chance to create history by disinvesting from fossil-fuel markets and investing in electric vehicles, bio-fuels and renewable energy. Though the movie does not speak much about electric cars, the usage of electric powered automobiles would eventually make us free from all kinds of fuels and bring the emissions to zero. Addiction to Electric Vehicles will kill oil !!!!!!!

I am surprised more people here have not flatly called out this movie as nonsense. This movie repeats some pretty extreme allegations which are usually the currency of chain emails or conspiracy theory websites. Home auto enthusiasts have repeatedly created vapor carburetors that allow cars to get 100+ miles a gallon since the 1950s? Even if you don't discount that logically (auto companies - not oil companies - would make billions if not trillions from this) then before you commit to believing something so extreme you ought to do a little research. After 10 minutes of honest searching on reputable sites such as wikipedia or snopes, you'll find that, as you should already expect, these claims are lies.

The brief history of the oil industry I did find informative and interesting. That's the only reason I'm giving this film two stars instead of one.

The only good thing about this movie is that it draws attention to our energy crisis. While watching the movie I was enraged by the claims the film made about big oil companies hiding the fact that we could get hundreds of miles per gallon of gas. After it was over I did a little research on these claims. It is easy to find out that they are all untrue.

Ogle debunked: I did not write the following but it wont let me post the link. "Is it really possible to get 100 miles per gallon? Absolutely; it just depends on what case you're evaluating. Did Tom Ogle achieve this on a 351 cubic inch Ford? How can it be proved, other than by skeptical claims that do not have concrete explanations? Considering we live on earth, the basic laws of physics are all we need to analyze and prove (or disprove) such a claim. These laws are essentially models of what occurs on our planet. For example, Force = Mass * Acceleration. This equation can be used to model how much force is required to accelerate a given mass. So, what are the laws concerning Ogle's scenario? Force = Mass * Acceleration is one of them - we're trying to accelerate a car to a certain speed for a certain time. Over the course of that time, friction is one of the resistive forces that impedes motion of the car. Gravity also impedes motion of the car. Without resistive forces, one could simply get the car up to a desired speed and it would continue at that speed until a resistive force acted on it. But as we all know, that doesn't happen on earth because there are numerous resistive forces. So we know there has to be a maximum mile per gallon amount that is achievable, since these resistive forces exist. Is 100 miles per gallon a plausible claim for a heavy Ford? To determine this, we need to know a few things: what kind of resistive forces is the vehicle trying to overcome while making its trip (the trip in which we are measuring its gas mileage), what kind of energy must the car exert to overcome these resistive forces, and how much gasoline is required to create that energy? For the first two parts of our analysis, the resistive forces the vehicle must overcome and the energy the car must exert should not be altered from any other vehicle. In other words, for our model to make sense in real world driving, the forces that resist Ogle's Ford and the energy that the Ford must exert to drive in regular road conditions are exactly the same for a Ford that does not have the Ogle system attached to it. Now, the energy part of the analysis is where Ogle made his supposed achievement. The energy equation is quite simple. Energy is composed of 3 parts (in simplified physics - that is, no nuclear power): Kinetic Energy, Potential Energy, and Internal Energy. Kinetic Energy is energy that results from a moving mass. Kinetic and potential energy are unimportant in this analysis and can be assumed to be zero. Internal energy is what is important in our analysis because it describes the amount of energy that a chemical reaction can produce (in our case, the reaction of burning gasoline). Gasoline has a specific amount of internal energy that is released when it is burned. There is a maximum achievable energy. For Olge's system to work, it must get more energy out of the gasoline than a normal car does. His system must come closer to the maximum achievable energy that exists in a specific amount of gasoline. The problem is that the maximum amount of energy in gasoline is not much higher than what an average car already achieves. Simply put, there is not enough 'extra' energy in the gasoline to be gained by burning it more completely, and there isn't enough unburned gasoline that goes through a car's engine to create a significant amount of extra energy. All modern car systems already have exhaust gas recirculation systems that recycle most of the exhaust fumes that still have small amounts of gasoline in them, and this is mainly for emissions reasons. Little gas mileage gains are seen in a properly maintained vehicle. To sum it up, Ogle did not design a device that made a Ford get excellent gas mileage while keeping the driving conditions the same. He would have either had to find ways to reduce the resistive forces (such as lowering the weight of the car) or he simply had an alternate fuel source hidden on his vehicle. Gasoline only has so much energy to give. Our cars already capture almost all of it. There aren't any significant gains to be made, regardless of how 'optimized' the system is. Significant losses don't occur from improper burning of gasoline, but rather from the resistive forces that exist in an engine and throughout a vehicle."

The reviewer claiming "urban legend" about the stories in the film cannot back up that accuastion.

I have actually located a listing for the "Fuel Economy of the Gasoline Engine" book mentioned in the film and it is "missing" from my local university's science library, just as they mentioned it is from the library of congress. There is plenty of reason to believe what is stated in this film. Actual patents are shown; articles are shown detailing these events.

It is not the case that the "patents" for more economical engines would make more money than continuing to get us all paying a tithe to the oil companies at the pumps constantly. It is very believable to me by looking at the behavior of oil companies the past 50 years, beginning with Standard Oil's monopoly behavior that it got a slap on the wrist for which resulted in ending the era of the street cars in the 1900s, that oil companies have definitely conspired to prevent better gas mileage. It is clear to me from watching gas mileage improve in the late 1970s with Carter's administration and then to watch a competition between car manufacturers until it started going backward in the early 1980s with Reagan, that there was a deliberate effort made to slow technology down.

I avoid "tin foil hat" shows and websites but I've watched THIS particular issue my whole life and this film helps fill in a few more blanks about why this has been happening. They don't make any claims and just show what they can document.

The stories of H.E. Crozier (Modesto, CA), David Blackmore of Shell (author of "Fuel Economy of the Gasoline Engine"), Tom Ogle (El Paso, TX - documented by the El Paso Times, El Paso Journal, and Argosy magzine in 1977).

I agree with the cynical reviewer in his stating that a gas-efficient carburetor such as getting 200 mpg isn't the ideal solution at this point given climate change issues; the real solution is to get away entirely from petroleum fuels entirely. But this behavior of oil companies squelching energy technologies such as the simple change to better gas efficiency, along with the pushing away from the GM EV1 electric car in the 1990s.

I have read and seen oil CEOs state flat out (without realizing the implications) that the oil companies "help" auto manufacture with design consultations for their engines. There is a good bit of logic and evidence for this shameful state of affairs regarding corrupt oil industry players slowing down progress in technology -- even to the point of letting our planet's environment be at risk.

Greed apparently is more important to the oil industry than doing their part to help the earth against climate change. The oil companies spend only a tiny fraction on new technologies and still remain all in on investment in polluting carbon burning petroleum technologies.

The points made in this film are therefore quite believable and carefully documented, without displaying more than they were able to find. I would have scored it higher if they would have gone further in their investigations.