Four Horsemen

Given the plethora of economic doom docs, do we really need another prognosticating end-of-the-worlder? Thankfully, Ross Ashcroft’s film uses a very different model to its predecessors. Instead of bombarding us with sensational imagery and scaremongering, this competently narrated, intelligibly structured and cleverly illustrated film presents its case via a succession of insights from a group of smart, rational orators.

Divided into four easy-to-digest chapters (the state of our rapacious financial system, the escalation of organised violence, worldwide poverty, the environment) ‘Four Horsemen’ calls on linguistics professor Noam Chomsky and a host of equally heavyweight economic, political and social thinkers to give us their take on where it all went wrong – and, more importantly, why. This is a film perhaps better suited to DVD, simply because there are thoughts here of such profundity you might feel the need to reach for the rewind button. I, for one, have been left substantially enlightened.