Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Jenna Walter The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Brenda The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Roland E. Zwick I'm not really sure why those who made "The End of Poverty?" felt compelled to include a question mark in their title, since around 90% of the movie is devoted to defining the problem and only about 10% to offering solutions.For much of the movie, director Philippe Diaz and narrator Martin Sheen keep hitting us with a litany of shocking and depressing statistics: that over 9,000,000 people die of starvation each year, that millions around the world earn less than a dollar a day, and that 60 to 80 million people work for nothing but room and board, making them virtual slaves in a 21st Century world. And that's just for starters. And just as you're about ready to throw in the towel and declare there's no hope for the world, the interviewees begin exploring possible answers (a fairer tax structure, returning land ownership to indigenous peoples, etc.), but it still seems an insurmountable task overall.On an instructional level, the movie traces the roots of modern poverty to the colonial era that began with the discovery of America, when countries - and now mega-corporations with no moral compass beyond the bottom-line - could exploit someone else's resources and amass huge stores of wealth at the expense of the lower classes. And that doesn't even include the robbing of the culture and the feeling of self-worth from the indigenous peoples of these lands.Diaz shows how the "haves" in the Northern Hemisphere have built and continue to build their fortunes primarily on the backs of the "have-nots" in the Southern Hemisphere. He interviews both economic theoreticians and common folk struggling for survival in both South America and Africa to drive home his point. He provides example upon example of how the policies of First World nations - neo-liberalism, unfettered free trade, multinational corporatism - have devastated the economies and peoples of the Third World.It's a depressing experience sitting through this film, but the shards of hope it provides towards the end do provide some comfort. And you might even be inspired enough to rouse yourself off the sofa and work on doing something about the problem. Now, if only anyone knew what that solution was.

wyn-15 One of the strengths of this film in my eyes is that it highlights the connections among poverty, privilege, access to natural resources (including but not limited to land itself), joblessness, low wages and terrorism, and touches at least briefly on the fact that a relative few of us are consuming a hugely disproportionate share of the world's natural resources, thereby depriving others of their equal right to these resources, and depriving future generations.Most people tend to think of these problems as intractable, and therefore devote themselves to charitable attempts to ameliorate their effects.Poverty is a function of how we structure the world's economy -- what we permit to be privatized, and what we treat as common property. Most countries, including the US, permit the privatization of the economic value of natural resources (Alaska being perhaps an exception) and land value, and then socialize wages and tax sales.The foundation which financed this production (Schalkenbach) comes from a different point of view. It was founded in the 1920s to promote the ideas of Henry George (b. Philadelphia, 1839; d. NYC, 1897), the author of "Progress and Poverty," the best-selling book ever on political economy, which, incidentally, comes from the same question as the film: "with so much wealth in the world, why is there still so much poverty?" To learn more about views of George's ideas, search on "quotable notables," "poverty think again" and "why global poverty." Look for his speeches, including "The Crime of Poverty." Like George's thought, TEOP? doesn't blame poverty's victims; it seeks to understand the systematic, structural aspects of poverty.The film itself only hints at George's ideas (mostly in the interviews with Clifford Cobb) and seems to me to be designed to open our minds to asking better questions about poverty's causes. I found it rather effective. It is beautifully photographed, includes some memorable music and visual images, and makes effective use of legible subtitles for most of the speakers whose words or accents I had difficulty understanding; I liked that I could listen to their voices and intonation, rather than hearing a translator drowning them out.Henry David Thoreau said "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." The widely-discussed "solutions" to poverty -- micro-credit, malaria nets, small-scale clean water devices, general education, etc. -- nibble at the leaves of poverty. Henry George's ideas go to the root of the problem, and show us how to eradicate it. I hope this film will ultimately lead more people to ask the right questions and discover that root for themselves, and then, switching metaphors, to connect the dots and strike at the root, illuminated by George's insights to guide policy.We CAN end poverty, but not in the ways we're currently going about it. We can also create a sustainable economy and environment.

ThomianGuy I had the privilege of watching this documentary at the African Film Festival here in New York City at Columbia University. It resonated with me. It was well done and provided vital information and perspective in relation to the way things have been structured. It is very easy to pass judgment on nations that are mired in poverty and resulting civil unrest and other ills, but producer Philippe Diaz brings forward a well put together valid explanation based on history that goes a long way in explaining what has brought them to this point.The documentary takes you around the world to make its points. The long legacy of despair that afflicts nations in "the south" can be found on both sides of the Atlantic and even as far east as Indonesia; in other words, areas that were touched by the colonial grabbing arms of Europe.It is definitely a documentary film I would recommend highly. Some may want to argue about the finer details. Some may want to provide a million different solutions or argue for this solution over that one. I'm not sure the director's intention was to provide solutions as much as he was trying to provide education and awareness in an appeal to conscience which in the end may spark ideas for solutions. Again, I would certainly recommend it and I commend everyone involved in the film's production. Certainly a must see!

freeds Phillipe Diaz's "The End of Poverty?" pretends to take up the cause of the world's oppressed. According to the short plot summary (written by producer Beth Portello) which appears on the main IMDb page for this film, it was "Inspired by the works of 19th century economist Henry George, who examined the causes of industrial depressions." The fact that the film methodically ignores the contributions of the far more influential and widely celebrated 19th century investigator of industrial depressions and poverty, Karl Marx, is but one indication of this film's intellectually shoddy and ultimately dishonest character."The End of Poverty?" is structured as a series of three intermixed components, which goes on for nearly all of a seemingly endless 106 minutes: (1) interviews with impoverished people in the "Third World," which, here, is synonymous with the "South"; (2) interviews with historians, economists and political thinkers (mostly from the "First World") who sketch out some of the history of European colonialism and its effects on the colonized peoples and (3) full-screen, white-on-black statistical statements like "X percent of the world's people consume Y percent of the world's energy" etc. Along the way, some of the commentators point out that the rise of capitalism was based on — and a large share of its profits continues to be based on — the ruthless exploitation of the colonial world. Although the talking heads often use the circumspect word "system," references to "capitalism" appear more frequently as the film progresses. Thus, the viewer might reasonably expect the film to culminate with a call for the end (overthrow?) of the system which causes all this misery: capitalism. Don't hold your breath!The film's portrait of the world's wretched is peculiarly skewed. Most of the interviews with poor people and footage of pitiful living conditions are from South America, notably Bolivia. The time allotted to Africa is a distant second and focuses on Kenya, with a much smaller Tanzanian component. There is precious little footage from — or mention of — Asia. Most of the interviewed poor are or were connected to the land in some way. Industrial workers are essentially ignored. Causes of poverty such as war and ethnic victimization are similarly overlooked. "Does poverty exist even within the over-consuming 'North' as well?" one might ask. As far as "The End of Poverty?" is concerned, the latter is invisible. Other viewers might be forgiven for wondering about the effects on poverty of the overthrow of capitalism in the Soviet Union, China and Cuba (the "Second World"?). Again, silence reigns. Thus, as a study of the world's misery, the film is impressively inadequate.As the film enters its final stage, there is a half-hearted invocation of the long-forgotten U.S. economic philosopher, Henry George. In his 1879 "Progress and Poverty," George proposed that poverty could be eliminated(!) by the abolition of ground rent and of all taxes save one: a tax on land. Not only was this panacea unoriginal (it had been advocated for more than 50 years by the followers of classical British economist David Ricardo), it was wacky. Karl Marx thought that George's theory was "the more unpardonable in him because he ought to have put the question to himself in just the opposite way: How did it happen that in the United States, where . . . in comparison with civilised Europe, the land was accessible to the great mass of the people, . . . capitalist economy and the corresponding enslavement of the working class have developed more rapidly and shamelessly than in any other country!" For Marx, adherents of George's view ". . . try to bamboozle . . . the world into believing that if ground rent were transformed into a state tax, all the evils of capitalist production would disappear of themselves. The whole thing is therefore simply an attempt . . . to save capitalist domination and indeed to establish it afresh on an even wider basis than its present one." (See Marx's letter to F. A. Sorge, June 20, 1881.) The film does not make so bold as to try to resurrect George's single-tax panacea. Instead, it offers an updated version: the "Commons" paradigm. Supporters of this liberal nostrum believe that the solution for the world's poor is to remove all of the land from private ownership and to hold it in common. Unsurprisingly, they do not explain how to achieve this little miracle.In the film's last few minutes, some of the commentators raise the specter of the supposed limitations (as judged by what standard — present-day capitalist production?) of the world's resources and the excessive and unequal consumption of those resources by the "North." The real aim of Diaz & Co. here is to guilt-trip gullible people in the industrialized countries into adopting moralistic "use less energy" schemes, as if conscience-stricken lowering of consumption in the "First World" will magically increase consumption in the "Third." The accelerating global descent into depression, triggered by the unprecedentedly massive "mortgage securities" fraud perpetrated by the U.S.'s financial sector, will, no doubt, achieve Diaz's aim of lowering consumption in the "North." Does he actually believe this will benefit the world's poor?For Diaz & Co., the "North" is an undifferentiated entity. Its working class, whose exploitation remains necessary for the survival of the capitalist system and which regularly loses some of its ranks into the maelstrom of poverty, does not figure in their calculations. And this is the most pernicious omission of their retreaded Malthusian ideology. For it is ONLY the working class of the developed countries — once it becomes conscious of its historic class interests — which has the SOCIAL POWER to reorganize production on a rationally-planned, world-wide, for-need basis, in order to lift itself AND the colonial masses out of the chain of misery. Because "The End of Poverty?" conceals this vital knowledge from anyone who is interested in ending poverty, it is, finally, an obstacle to achieving that goal.Barry Freed