The Big Uneasy

Part-time New Orleans resident and full-time satirical muckraker Harry Shearer sheds light on an aspect of Hurricane Katrina that's been largely ignored---namely, the postdisaster cover-up regarding the Army Corps of Engineers building shoddy levees. Unlike the pleasurably flippant commentary of his political radio program, Le Show, however, Shearer eschews snark for solid reportage; John Goodman's "Ask a New Orleanian" vignettes aside, this is a no-frills expos of bureaucratic incompetence, lies and corruption. Which is both The Big Uneasy's admirable blessing and its burden. Whistle-blowing works best without gratuitous pop-doc debris, but there are only so many dry, fact-heavy testimonies from engineers you can take before a certain dullness uneasily settles in.

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