Year:	2007
Production Co:	Youngheart Entertainment
Director:	Christopher Martin/John Pilger
Producer:	Christopher Martin
Writer:	John Pilger

Cast:

John Pilger, Hugo Chavez

I have the utmost respect for John Pilger's books, but I wasn't prepared for some of the more slipshod aspects of this film.

Perhaps it's because I'm very much on Pilger's side of the fence so I knew most of what was talked about. Perhaps it's because it was not so much subjective, but very much preaching to the converted.

The problem's inherent in the film are implicit as Pilger tries to interview a US official who flat out refuses and ridicules all claims of wrongdoing at the hands of Noriega and other US puppets who sold off and murdered much of South America in the 60s and 70s.

Pilger takes us from the story of the rise of Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to the September 11, 1973 CIA-led coup that overthrew Salvador Allende to Venezuela's popular uprising under Hugo Chavez.

Pilger's aim however is to highlight the US approach to democracy where its commercial interests aren't favoured - including to subvert, destroy and overturn it at every turn.

It just all feels like Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky and Pilger himself should have told this story ten years ago - and they did.