Good story, Not enough for a whole film

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

The topic was very engaging. Very eye opening to see how the big companies can control things on a national and local level, but the overall quality of the movie was extremely lacking. I tried to not be that harsh in understanding this is a first time director and that the content itself was powerful to inform and entertain the viewer, but there are some real big problems with the creative side.The good is that overall I really enjoyed this topic and found myself very impressed with how the story telling worked within the edit. There was a good movement that always had you waiting to see what would come next with enough content to allow people to begin to understand the topic. Starting with the case that from watching this seems to be the most misrepresented court case ever it was extremely engaging. Great use of slow reveals through a man on the street technique and a good variation of stories that attracted different audiences. Then we have the artistic side of things. The music for this movie was awful. I mean truly awful to the point that I found myself feeling like I was in a hotel lobby and the worst part was I kept coming back to it. Very poorly produced music that did not at all fit with the content. Then you have the cover ups which seemed to be a combo of i-stock photos mixed with awful visuals that reminded me of corporate videos that the editor had to cover up a cut or find a way to make more time than what they had the footage before. Then you have your animations which at times were very nice and at others that looked like they paid someone to alter a template. Really really poorly put together and all looked like they were done by different people.Similar to this was the interviews, which for the most part were shot professionally, but a few were poorly framed with incorrect lighting and made me think that someone else had to shoot some of them. This was very annoying at times.I enjoyed the content like I said above, but there were many times where things were said in interviews or content was used that really did not go with the movie. I don't know if the editor just wanted to keep it fat or what, but there are moments that just did not at all work for the content. I would say that if there is anything worth learning from this movie it's in the content and that is why I did not try and be to harsh, but the difference between an educational video and a documentary is pretty significant and to be a movie that got into the festivals it did I really really had myself scratching my head. I think of it like when you show your family something that you made. While they might be persuaded by their love for you so much that they can over look the things you did wrong in making it they will almost always tell you it looks great. Which with this it's the politics, so you could make a bad conservative movie or a republican movie and as longs as it subscribes to their beliefs you will be okay.I recommend based on the content that you check it out, but think the artistic merit is lacking.

How does big business turn a multi-million dollar pay-out into a substantial coup for industry and a devastating blow for the civil justice system? Quite easily, according to Susan Saladoff's 'Hot Coffee'.On February 27, 1992, Stella Liebeck, a healthy, active 72 year-old woman spilled a cup of boiling hot McDonald's coffee on her inner thigh. Suing McDonald's for damages, she was awarded $160,000 in medical damages and $2.7 million dollars in punitive damages by a jury; a trial judge would later reduce the award, and the two parties settled confidentially. In the meantime Liebeck and her cause were being pilloried by the nation's media - how, they said, could a company be liable for the mishandling error of a patron?Big business latched onto this wave of public opinion to condemn, in a widespread and well- financed media campaign, the rising tide of so-called 'frivolous lawsuits' eating away at the profits of all businesses. 'Tort reform' became the new catch-cry of this push - 'tort' meaning a 'harm' essentially - as industry used its leverage to encourage politicians, judges and the public alike to get behind new regulation that would make pay-outs like the one to Stella Liebeck a mere memory. The problem with this lies between the lines of the Liebeck case. Court photos detailing the extent of Liebeck's injuries - which required two separate skin grafts and over $100,000 worth of medical costs - are horrifying, as are the revelations that McDonald's had received over 700 unanswered complaints about the potential for injury with their standardized coffee temperature. That the jury came down so vehemently on the side of the plaintiff, and the corporation lowered their temperature standard in the wake of the case demonstrates not that this was not the 'frivolous' lawsuit painted in the media, but an appropriate and necessary use of the civil justice system.Not content to rest on this relative bombshell - I for one was embarrassed at my lack of knowledge of the Liebeck case - Saladoff charts how the case was used to systematically introduce US-wide 'tort reform', in the manner of both 'caps on damages' and 'mandatory arbitration' clauses in contract. These 'reforms' ensure that big business is protected from not merely the very few con artists seeking to extort them out of money (of which Liebeck is not one), but also the majority of whom have a reasonable and justified case to put forward to a civil court.The tragedy is this whole sage is not that Liebeck received such a pay-out, but that with these new misnomers of 'reforms', the likes of Liebeck are no longer sufficiently protected from the rich and powerful. Accountability is gradually being eroded, with the tacit consent of the people no less.Concluding Thought: How have I gone this long without knowing the context of the McDonald's case? Should I have been more diligent and found out myself, or can I blame the media?

Let's get a couple of facts out of the way that this "documentary" never bothered with. From a taste standpoint, coffee has to be brewed just off the boil, which means at 195 to 200 degrees Fahrenheit, and you can not find anyone serious about good coffee who will disagree with that. Secondly, when someone hands you a cup of hot coffee, it's your responsibility to deal with it, to avoid injuring yourself with it. If someone hands you a loaded gun, and you shot yourself in the face, who's fault is that?Yes, this woman screwed up, she dumped a cup of very hot coffee in her lap. How the hell is that McDonald's fault? Because they sold coffee that is hot? Hells, bells, their customers EXPECT hot coffee.My brother when he was two years old, pulled a freshly brewed cup of hot coffee my dad had just set down for a second onto to himself and was hospitalized with burns all over his body. Gosh I wish we could have thought of someone to sue, because we'd be rich forever. This stupid woman poured hot coffee all over herself and sued the pants off McDonalds. And won.And this STUPID PIECE OF PROPAGANDA tries to make us believe that's justice. It's not justice. It's a set of tragedies. This woman was burned beyond belief and spent months in pain for a mistake SHE made. That's the first tragedy, but there's only one person who could have prevented it. The second tragedy is that a court of law inexplicably gave this woman millions of dollars of OTHER people's money for making a mistake that none of those other people could have prevented.And yet this film tries to convince us that's justice.It's not justice. It's extortion.

the movie is presented in 4 chapters showing 4 cases. chapter 1 explains the (in)famous McDonalds hot coffee case. chapter 2 explores caps on liability. chapter 3 presents a "claim" of drugging and brutal gang rape that necessitated reconstructive surgery and the relation to binding arbitration and alternate dispute resolution. The section of the movie says what will then happen in the dispute. After the movie was released the person involved has been found to have made false claims. she eventually had a trial and it was found there was no evidence she was raped or suffered reconstructive surgery, her lawsuit was dismissed as baseless. Ergo, this entire section of the movie is untrue. chapter 4 explores judicial elections and/or judicial activism.chapters 1,2,4 are interesting but chapter 3 is so horrendously falsified that the entire work of the director should be discarded.