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DVD REVIEW: Conspiracy-filled film lacks depth

By: Fernando Ramos, Staff Writer

Posted: 4/3/07

For the past couple of years, there has been a particularly odious form of politicking going around. You may have seen it, heard about it on the news or at least been told about its virtues from your roommate. Yes, the propaganda I am talking about is 2005's infamous Internet-video phenomenon "Loose Change."

Originally conceived by college student Dylan Avery as a fictional "what-if" thriller about someone discovering a conspiracy about the 9/11 attacks, Avery began to believe the research he was doing showed that the U.S. government was, and continues to be, actively involved in covering up the truth behind 9/11.

It would be fair to say that if you're reading this paper (or Web site) then you saw, in the early morning on Sept. 11, two planes hit two very tall buildings, blow up in very real fire and collapse, killing nearly 3,000 people. No sign of remote-controlled aircraft, hidden missiles on the planes and especially nothing that would suggest bombs had been placed in the World Trade Center.

However, what Avery and his crew, which consists of producer Korey Rowe and researcher Jason Bermas, try their damnedest to do is bring these unusual, and quite frankly stupid, scenarios to fruition.

They aim to dispute the "official story" by taking an exhaustive collection of articles, declassified military documents and clip after clip from every major cable news network, set it to rata-tat-tat narration and spooky hip-hop beats.

Admittedly, the film has style and, the pacing is smooth, the music is catchy and the editing is very slick, utilizing some creative cross-cutting, especially in the opening act.

Nonetheless, from a factual perspective, the end result is an almost surreal mishmash of science fiction and comic book super-villain, with a blatant desire on Avery's part to grind axes ahead of simple things such as facts.

Even the film's obtuse title seems to almost make sense in that light - it feels like loose change in that the fragments and questions don't add up to any cohesive theory. The points Avery makes fall apart under closer scrutiny.

Perhaps the most insulting "theory" is the one involving Flight 93, wherein the filmmakers posit that the plane was secretly taken into custody in Cleveland and then the passengers were taken to a NASA facility.

Adding salt to the wounds of grieving families and the intelligences of many more, Avery has the gall to say, "Nobody knows what happened to the passengers," as if there's no way the plane could've, perhaps, crashed in an act of terrorism. No, instead it's a conspiracy that former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, President Bush and perhaps even a secret Jewish cabal are in on.

Nevermind there's no available evidence to back up this bold claim.

At the risk of sounding repetitive, much of the film's theorizing and question asking seem to assume that the viewer agrees with their point of view.

It implies that you must already believe that 9/11 was a government-caused, controlled demolition using planes to "disguise" a "true cause." And you must already buy that Flight 93 was not hi-jacked by al-Qaida-trained operatives, but instead victim of a U.S. government plot to do ... something, for even Avery has no clue.

Especially laughable is the film's epilogue, wherein Avery mentions that "every single attempt to uncover and investigate the truth behind 9/11 has been ridiculed and harassed by the government and the press for even daring to question the official story," followed by scenes of Bremas at a so-called 9/11 Truth Conference on C-SPAN.

Granted, C-SPAN isn't exactly the sexiest place to be seen, but that's OK because a cursory look shows that they have achieved coverage on CNN, dozens of nationally syndicated radio shows and even the piece of paper you hold in your hand, showing that this movement is far from being violently suppressed.

It's at least proof, despite the current administration's excesses in the privacy and rights of our citizens, that at least the piece of paper written more than 200 years ago called the Constitution still means something.