Another Gray Area

The inconvenient truth about "The 11th Hour"

The global warming documentary was supposed to be in more than 1,000 theaters by Labor Day weekend last summer, but the box-office receipts weren’t so … er, hot. The movie never expanded beyond 111 theaters and earned $707,343 in the U.S., according to Box Office Mojo. Not surprisingly, it never played in Trumbull or Mahoning county theaters.

The movie arrives on DVD today ($4.99, Warner Home Video). I haven’t seen the DVD, so I can’t comment on any extras, but here’s the review of the movie that’s been sitting in my computer queue since last August:

WHAT: “The 11th Hour”

STARS: Narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio

STORYLINE: We’re all gonna die unless …

DIRECTORS: Nadia Conners and Leila Conners Petersen.

RATING: PG for some mild disturbing images and thematic elements.

GRADE: C-

By ANDY GRAY Tribune Chronicle

“The 11th Hour” is the latest volley in the battle for “hearts and minds” on the environmental front.

One of the many scientists, activists and experts interviewed in the documentary even uses the Vietnam-era phrase to describe the effort.

But in this shot, the problem isn’t the message but the medium.

“The 11th Hour” seems to be trying to prove that lazy writer’s cliche ­- “He/she is so talented/hot, I could watch him/her read the telephone book.”

The person in question is Leonardo DiCaprio, who serves as narrator for this documentary. But it would take a “Titanic”-sized obsession with the actor to sit through this movie just to hear DiCaprio’s voice interwoven with the experts and the occasional shot of DiCaprio looking pensively at nature.

He won’t be enough to make anyone go see the movie. In fact, it’s hard to imagine anyone paying to see “The 11th Hour” who doesn’t go to see it in a hybrid car – or on a bicycle – and then discuss it with friends over a soy latte made from organic beans.

It is the ultimate example of preaching to the converted.

That doesn’t discount the information it contains. There’s a large contingent of experts in their fields who make the case for global warming and how the planet ultimately could become uninhabitable for the human race.

As one person points out, 99.9999 percent of the species that have existed on Earth in its 38- to 40-billion years are extinct. We could join them if some hard, fundamental changes aren’t made right now, and getting people to change isn’t easy.

Former CIA director James Woolsey quotes Winston Churchill, who once said, “Americans always do the right thing. Unfortunately, it’s only after they’ve exhausted all of the other possibilities.”

There are those voices who will discount the scientists and/or their conclusions. All I know is if I was picking a team, whether it was for Trivial Pursuit or to identify and fix the planet’s problems, I’d go with Stephen Hawking and his gang over the folks on the other side of the argument, which gets no voice in the documentary by Nadia Conners and Leila Conners Petersen.

I’m not qualified to evaluate the science of “The 11th Hour,” but it comes up lacking as a film.

From an entertainment standpoint, it makes “An Inconvenient Truth” look like “Transformers.” It’s such an endless parade of talking heads, I kept waiting for DiCaprio to show up in an over-sized white suit singing “Burning Down the Planet.”

I’m not sure how you reach the environmentally ignorant or skeptical masses – a Pete Seeger week on “American Idol” where all the contestants sing folk songs, strippers giving lap dances to Melissa Etheridge’s “Inconvenient Truth” anthem “I Need to Wake Up,” a cool video game where players advance to the next level by lowering their carbon dioxide emissions.

Expecting them to pay to watch a dry, talky documentary isn’t going to do it.