Steinesongo Too many fans seem to be blown away

SpecialsTarget Disturbing yet enthralling

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

Roxie The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

ironhorse_iv In my opinion, Freakonomics works a lot better if it was a documentary TV Show series like 2003's Penn & Teller's Bullsh*t because it's focus on a lot of different topics ranging from Sumo Wrestlers to naming your child. Putting all these topics in one hour and 33 minutes isn't enough to cover all the subjects, with its brief running time. Honestly, these unrelated topics don't even match well together with multiply directors with different styles of filmmaking. It felt like they were trying to put their small pieces into one giant puzzle and the pieces don't fit. The tone of the film change from silly segment to serious segment in a blink of an eye that the film felt like bi-polar economist. The film is all over the place. I don't think the director (Heidi Edwing) in charge of putting these smaller films together did a good job. I really didn't know what was keeping these topics, together. It felt like the big thread connector, 'Economics' was missing in some pieces. It look and sound more like sociology or criminology at best. It felt rush, and directionless. Based on the book, 'Freakonomics' by economist Steven D. Levitt and writer Stephen J. Dubner. The book is a collection of 'economic' articles written by Levitt. The book is covered in six chapters of different social topics. The movie only covers four of these chapters, leaving out the topics of Chapter 2: Information control as applied to the Ku Klux Klan and real-estate agents & Chapter 3: The economics of drug dealing, including the surprisingly low earnings and abject working conditions of crack cocaine dealers. In the 2005's "Revised and Expanded Edition" of 'Freankonomics', the Khan part was considerably too exaggerated and left out of the film for that reason. Chapter 2 was merge into topics into smaller sequences between the bigger pieces. These smaller sequences are directed by Seth Gordon of 2007's King of Kong's fame, but it felt like rambling than anything really important. Like the potty training sequence, it was just a turd to watch. Another sequence, I didn't like was the 'Roshanda By Any Other Name' which is Chapter 6 in the book. Super-Size Me, Morgan Spurlock's investigation of the possible implications of names, especially racial names, in how personal development and social advancement. Common names are more liking to have success than exotic foreign names in America. The comedy timing in this sequence was a bit off. I didn't find, myself laughing as much as others. There was also a great chapter similar to it, call Chapter 5: The negligible effects of good parenting on education. They kinda merge Chapter 5 with 'It's Not Always a Wonderful life' AKA Chapter 4. 'It's Not Always A Wonderful Life', narrated by Melvin Van Peebles and directed by 'Why we fight' director, Eugene Jarecki. This is the most controversial segment in the film. It explores the theory that the increase of birth control & abortion has led to a decline in the urban crime rate in the US during the mid- to late 1990s. The movie states that 1973 US Supreme Court case, Roe v. Wade, in the US permitted people to have legal abortions, leading more wanted children with better upbringings than ever before. This also key into 'Can You Bribe A 9th Grader To Succeed!' AKA Chapter 1: Director Rachel Grady documents an experiment in Chicago, Illinois to determine the efficacy of paying students to achieve higher grades. The whole sequence was annoying as they got some of the worst kids ever to do this study and the results are meaningless. So, it felt like a waste of time. Gees, it was hard to get through that. Chapter 1 also explain in Director Alex Gibney's exploration of the Japanese concept of yaochō match fixing in Sumo wrestling. Yaocho is when a secured position tournament fighter allows the other person to win to get in the tournament to ignored getting hurt or allow his buddy to get a win to look better. That was probably the best sequence in the movie, but so out of place. In my opinion, this topic deserve a 2 hour documentary of its own. It doesn't really relate to any of the other topics, but it relates more to economics than most of the film. The various topics and scenarios presented kinda loses sight of what they were presenting and never really manages to find its proper balance. Overall: The movie does a bad job at selling the book, but the use of trendy pop culture, quirky characters, special graphic effects, and interesting topics made it entertaining. So get your freak on!

marymorrissey now I've seen something by morgan spurlock finally, which at least didn't involve watching him doing schtick or shooting off at the mouth, and yet... it couldn't have been more annoying! the piece on sumo wrestlers begins with this "artistic" minute or so of wrestling shots with Japanese characters and numbers ticking off on either side of the screen. what's the point? Art? What a joke. This movie had far too much ground to cover to waste time with dubious post production wizardry that served only to slow the thing down.Also, the music is INCREDIBLY annoying and far too loud a lot of the time. The opening credits were also far too long and "fancified" as if bells and whistles would make them any less of a waste of time to sit through.I could not get through the Sumo section. I also found, I have to say, the authors, as I guess they were, the two guys "playing off each other" cause they imagine themselves to be "funny"... to be incredibly annoying. As in, guy 1: I'm about to sell my house. Guy 2: and a very nice house it is! I say so! I'm the real estate agent1" LOLs galore try just shutting your butt face and letting the damn information proceed. Or is it clever or funny in some way for filmmakers to ask 2 experts, "so is there a name I could name my child that would guarantee his success in the world?" HAHAHA it's that famous "Wit" again! Obviously this isn't possible! Anybody would know, especially at the end of this overlong segment that established this over and over first from the mouth of one expert then from another mouth of another expert. Why it must be HUMOR and COMEDY that motivated the question! HAHAHAH! LOL! HORRIBLE attempt at infotainment that had me feeling like kicking in my television...Life is far too short for a film like this to pollute my brain. I'll take the advice of another reviewer here to check out the wiki entries on the book, since it's clear to me I wouldn't enjoy the style of these two entertaining economics professors or whatever they are, borderline criminals offers the "funny guy" LOL HAHAHA!

Mrico1680 As for the movie and book I thought they were both great. I would just like to add my own personal insight on the portion a out the sumo "cheaters.". I don't think they are cheaters at all. I think their behavior falls into a different category called self preservation. Just like any NFL team that has already sealed a playoff spot facing a team trying to make the post season. The better playoff team is not going to try as hard. i.e. not play all their starters or not play as aggressive. That team is not throwing the game in hopes of getting the favor returned. They are just just avoiding injury and resting up for a more important match. I imagine in japan as in America it's not a big secret that teams or wrestlers in these situations are expected to perform sub-par and the statistics showing this pattern would be accepted as normal.

tributarystu I'll admit from the off that I was skeptical regarding this documentary ever since I first heard it was in production. Having read the book, I felt that what made it enjoyable could not really be transposed onto film. Economics, being such a science of numbers, even in its freakonomic form, does not really lend itself to being narrated to death.Going beyond this limitation, I reckon the film could have still been better, had it found a unity of tone. Unfortunately, as several different teams were involved with making each of the four chapters, the final experience is heavily fragmented and unlike the book, which kept its pacing throughout, the film is all over the place.The first part basically looks at whether there is some sort of correlation between a person's first name and the path one goes through life. A potentially amusing segment, it proves to be in search of a comic sense it never arrives at and the examples taken from the book appear wholly unrealistic and not fully integrated.The second part is quite dark and brings forth a sort of investigation into the Sumo world and allegations of match-rigging. Contextualized in the sacrosanct culture that defines the sport, this exploration of truth, justice and fair-play toys around with big words and complex issues, its reach ultimately exceeding its grasp.The third part references dear old Romania and our beloved dictator's policy of ruling abortions illegal - a subject matter dealt with artistically in the well-known "4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days". I'm not quite sure the parallel proves a point, because it tries to show how the opposite policy, legalizing abortion in the US following Roe v Wade, caused a sudden, steep reduction in crime in the early nineties. Ironically enough, the generation Ceausescu (the dictator referenced above) forcibly gave birth to, so to say, caused his downfall. Yet, I think this segment points out an interesting observation, even if one could get distracted by the overly dramatic narration.The last part is an on-film experiment about trying to find an incentive to make kids get better grades in high-school by offering financial rewards. Unfortunately, the set-up lacks any authentic feel and implicitly does not help support the case that the authors tried to convey.So overall it would seem that almost all segments have at least one fundamental issue that they don't tackle very well. At times the film livens due to the interesting nature of the facts being presented, but on the whole it's still shy of a successful venture. Even while reading the book I felt that the novelty seeped out of it before I had reached its end and this feeling was only exacerbated in the documentary. I don't think this is the place to debate the correctness of the research Levitt and Dubner have done or their conclusions, because the film certainly does not offer a strong basis to work on. The book has a scientific feel to it, conferring at least a sense of objectivity and, more importantly, finding the levity to show that it does not assume to offer absolute answers. The documentary, on the other hand, loses sight of this and never manages to find its proper balance.