Freakonomics (2010) Poster

(2010)

User Reviews

Review this title
32 Reviews
Sort by:
Filter by Rating:
5/10
Lukewarm at best
tributarystu14 January 2011
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.
37 out of 45 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
6/10
Entertaining but light on details
Promontorium7 August 2013
This isn't really a documentary. A few of the chapters from the book are presented in this film. The way the issues are presented usually involve first Levitt and Dubner speaking about the issue interspersed with various imagery and animation. Some archival footage is used. Particularly when the topic addresses famous historical events. Each segment will also have actors re-enacting events or acting out original scenes to present the topic visually. There are also other experts or people who call themselves experts (like an "expert" in baby names) talking about the issue. Finally there is some footage of actual people either discussing personal experiences, or in the case of the high school students, the students themselves living their lives. Although even this seems staged at points.

It seems they used a lot of flashy graphics and various forms of presentation to cover up the fact that this film is ultimately Levitt, Dubner and the narrator just talking generally about the issues covered in the book. I'm a fan of the podcast so if this film had just been them talking and nothing else I'd still have liked it. But there is a sense of lacking an opportunity in creating something new on film. All the colorful imagery doesn't bring anything new to the table.

The film doesn't cover the entire book. I haven't read it in years but one of the more important topics to me was about the drug dealers which wasn't in the film.

What I found really lacking, beyond the visual or the missing chapters, is that they didn't really go into detail with anything. They vaguely reference statistics, but hardly show any. They make off handed comments about important concepts that they don't spend any time on. Two of the most important themes of the entire work, causation vs. causality, and the power of incentive are hardly discussed beyond the immediate topic. For example while they note in the film that people often mistake correlation with causation, and that finding cause is very difficult, they don't spend a second actually explaining why cause is difficult to ascertain (except that it isn't immediately apparent). Day one of a social science course is going to identify the difficulty or impossibility of defining cause. Levitt and Dubner do not mention that while statistics and economics in the scope of numbers is natural science, their application in Freakonomics is social science, and all the stats in the world won't necessarily prove cause in social science.
6 out of 6 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
7/10
A Nutshell Review: Freakonomics
DICK STEEL29 January 2011
Based upon the bestselling book written by steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, Freakonomics the film is an omnibus of shorts, where different filmmakers adapt a segment of the book for their respective sections, and then putting them all together into a feature length documentary. In some ways, it could have been directed by an invisible hand rather than the "big name" documentarians of today and probably still come up on tops, since the subject matter is rather contentious at best, and in my opinion, a little bit too stretched.

For my limited understanding of basic economic principles from school, there's hardly any straightforward demand and supply theories that can be applied by anyone not too well versed with various theorems and hypotheses that Economics deal with, though you need not have intimate knowledge of the subject in order to view the film. I thought it was more of a sociology experiment, since there are many of topics here that deal with the basic human condition on social principles rather than an economic standpoint, and in many ways, through its touted in depth analysis, it's more akin to hammering a square peg into a round hole.

It adapts from chapters in the book such as discovering cheating as applied to teachers and delving deep into the closed community of sumo wrestlers, the patterns that emerge with the naming, or misnaming of children, and how bribery can be used as an incentive to succeed. You can imagine how economics can be applied to these, so perhaps it's quite apt that the concepts discussed are freakish to begin with. Economics theories and principles are filled with plenty of assumptions and "ceteris paribus"es, so in twisting some of these assumptions, what you get is the content as explained in Levitt and Dubner's book, which are adapted by the likes of Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room), Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me and Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden), Eugene Jarecki (Why We Fight), Rachel Grady and Heldi Ewing (Jesus Camp), and put all together with various transitional, brief topics by Seth Gordon (The King of Kong).

Perhaps the only economics related idea here is how the lack of information and irrational choices by consumers have led to skewed markets, which goes to show the sneaky arsenal of tactics that real estate agents have up their sleeves to manipulate markets to their advantage. But while you shouldn't expect economics to fit into most of the subject matter discussed here, the concept that gets explained are incredibly sexy, and brought out through eye- catching methods, sometimes with the use of effective animation like a lubricant to force ideas down and eventually nailing that square peg into the round hole.

What's more important is the fact that we cannot deny the little things everyone does to get ahead, where the objective is to use whatever means possible to get a desired outcome. The teacher and results segment remind one about how school ranking pressures here become an obsession, with results to the detriment of those who somehow fall by the sidelines, and how an elite community help each other to stay afloat for various benefits and back-rubbing. It's human nature to seek out competitive advantage, and one constant in sitting through the various topics and scenarios presented, is how data mining (a term I got introduced to when in varsity) has that ability to present a wealth of information that can be used to analyze for gaining that upper hand. Businesses use it, and so does the many researchers of topics in Freakonomics.

You won't become an expert or a whiz after viewing this, but what it'll open your eyes and mind to, are the plenty of behind the scenes shenanigans that even the seemingly innocent industry or individual get up to, that indeed like the tagline of the film says everything has a hidden side to them. It's really more than meets the eye, and presented here in a very alluring manner.
14 out of 17 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
6/10
Freakonomics (2010)
SnakesOnAnAfricanPlain14 December 2011
Freakonomics is one of those films that tries to make a complex subject accessible to a mainstream audience. Here, there subject in question is economics, and how it is everywhere. Although trying to reach a wider audience in a fun way we can relate to is admirable, it can't avoid a patronizing tone. Still, there are lots of interesting parts to this documentary. It's split into a number of sections, with each section helmed by a familiar documentary filmmaker. This allows for a number of fun and interesting style to be put on display. As we delve into the world of economics, this all feels like a few great bits in an overambitious whole. Each segment has a fascinating topic, and one that could be explored at full length. Corruption and murder in sumo wrestling, how our names affect our lives, and how abortion may have helped to reduce the crime rate. All great subjects that are handled with kid gloves. It has inspired me to look into further detail about some things, but I wonder if the ideas and thoughts provoked will last a long time.
10 out of 12 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
7/10
This was a pretty freakin' good movie, but it's too all over the place.
ironhorse_iv8 March 2014
Warning: Spoilers
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!
5 out of 6 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Uneven, mainly ho-hum documentary
lor_27 September 2010
Employing 5 teams of directors (who did not collaborate per the producer's q&a comments), the film adaptation of FREAKONOMICS is a hit-or-miss extravaganza, mostly missing the mark. Even fans of the popular book (and its followups) are unlikely to be stimulated.

Superstar doc director Alex Gibney takes precedence here, and producer Chad Troutwine acknowledged at the post-screening q&a that his segment runs long for some audiences. I found his study of corruption in the ranks of Japan's sumo wrestling rather uninteresting, and Gibney's forced comparisons to the bad boys of Wall Street (Bernie Madoff, etc.) pointless and self-serving.

Movie's most controversial sequence has to be Eugene Jarecki's elaboration of the book's chapter on the causes of the lowered U.S. crime rate in recent decades. As an anti-Giuliani New Yorker I certainly ate up the red meat portion of the footage, indicating that our local self-appointed savior really had nothing to do with the dramatic lowering of the NYC homicide and violent crime rate since around 1989. However, author/economist Steven Levitt's conclusion that, statistically, 50% of the reduction in crime in this country is attributable to Roe v. Wade making abortion legal and readily available to a whole generation beginning in the '70s (causing there to be fewer unwanted kids in existence who might have grown up to become serious criminals 16 to 20 years after) spurious and more a case of grandstanding that solid science. Sure, he controlled for all the relevant variables (areas of the country that had already legalized abortion prior to 1973 vs. the rest of the nation, etc.), but I don't buy it. And worse yet, where does it lead us -to endorse eugenics next?

That segment exemplifies my basic problem with FREAKONOMICS, the publishing phenomenon and now the movie: trying to analyze complex issues from an economic standpoint is simply not applicable to all situations, unless you force it. It is just Levitt applying his expertise willy-nilly in what I take to be self-aggrandizement, and obviously millions of people are taken in by his con. Watching the film I became painfully aware of his heavy emphasis, almost ad nauseum, on the concept of "incentives", which he clearly believes professionally to be a basic way of explaining human behavior. Repeated over & over, the shallowness of this approach becomes quite evident.

There is a very cute segment by Morgan (SUPERSIZE ME) Spurlock on naming children, emphasizing issues with the prevalence of unique (even Uneek as a choice) names within the Black community, but this is also one of the dumber segments by the time all the theories have been trotted out and lampooned. The femme directors Grady & Ewing take on use of cash incentives (there's that word again) to attempt to approve grades and achievement of Chicago Heights ninth graders, but that part of the film struck me as pretty phony, even including a fantasy sequence, though the main protagonist named Urail (another unique name victim) is a winning screen presence.

Seth Gordon, who interviewed Levitt and his co-author, journalist Stephen Dubner at length, comes off best in this documentary since he does only the intros & interstitial segments. Overall, as one naysayer at the q&a perceptively noted, the film is mainly old-hat.
43 out of 92 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
7/10
Good, but doesn't add anything to the books
grantss16 September 2021
I really enjoyed the books, Freakonomics and Superfreakonomics, so was curious how they could be made into a movie. Turns out it is exactly as you would expect - a documentary with enactments and illustrations.

The dramatizations help, but, other than this, the movie doesn't really add anything to the books.

Still, well worth the watch, especially if you haven't read the books.
2 out of 4 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
6/10
The Wikisummaries of the book is much better
DanDV2 April 2011
I read the book enough years ago to have forgotten a big part of it, yet I still saw that the movie omitted major topics, while dragging a lot on others (sumo and the experiment of bribing the 9th graders).

In general, the movie could have mentioned more convincing data and statistics, instead of dwelling on obscure bits. For example, the parenting chapter was massively abridged. The book talks about 10 factors that actually make a difference, like parents having lots of book in their home. The chapter on why drug dealers still live with their moms was omitted, and so was the chapter on Ku Klux Klan.

And here's an actually *useful* bit of information, as opposed to my opinions about this movie: You're much better off spending 5 minutes reading the summary of the book from Wikisummaries.org (short URL - http://bit.ly/haT4i2).
2 out of 6 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
8/10
When economics becomes freaky
intern-8821 June 2012
Until 2005, the words 'economics' and 'fun' were unlikely to be found in the same sentence. Economics was seen as a dry, technical, mathematical discipline: the preserve of driven businessmen, greedy bankers and staid Treasury officials. Fun was its opposite: spontaneous enjoyment available to regular people.

The publication of Freakonomics in 2005 changed all that. Steven Levitt, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Dubner, a New York Times journalist, somehow gave economics popular appeal. So far the book has sold over four million copies worldwide. Last year, a sequel, Superfreakonomics, was published and there is also a Freakonomics blog linked to the New York Times website.

Wherever there's an unexpected publishing hit, you can be sure that a bandwagon will soon follow. In 2007 alone we had Steven Landsburg's More Sex is Safer Sex, Tyler Cowen's Discover Your Inner Economist and Diane Coyle's The Soulful Science. Nor is the fun confined to the paperback stands. Earlier this month there was even an international academic symposium on 'economics made fun in the face of economic crisis' at Erasmus University in Rotterdam.

The film follows the structure of the book with chapters loosely linked by the broad approach of the authors. There is little sense of narrative beyond that. However, one innovation is that different chapters are made by different directors including Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me), Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side) and Seth Gordon (The King of Kong).

Freakonomics the movie is worth watching for two reasons. As with any cultural phenomenon, whether it is The X-Factor or Strictly Come Dancing (aka Dancing with the Stars outside the UK), it is interesting to ask why it catches the popular imagination. This is particularly true when the subject matter is – or at least was – widely seen as incredibly dull.

Understanding the approach to economics taken in the film also helps reveal some deeper truths. It shows the limitations of contemporary economics and can even help viewers understand fashionable policy initiatives such as the attempt to 'nudge' people to behave in a particular way.

The first thing that viewers of the Freakonomics movie are likely to notice it that has little time for the traditional subject matter of the discipline. There is no room for discussion of business, supply-and- demand curves, and certainly no mathematics. Instead it covers such subjects as parenting, naming babies, cheating at exams, corruption among Sumo wrestlers and crime. If anything, such topics would normally be classified as sociology rather than economics.

From the authors' perspective, what makes their book economics is their approach to these subjects. Their concerns are unashamedly practical. They want to use economic tools to help improve human behaviour in all these areas.

Levitt and Dubner's mantra, and indeed that of contemporary market economics generally, is that 'humans respond to incentives'. Such incentives are often financial but they can also be moral and social. In each case the authors ask themselves what incentives would work best to improve outcomes:

Is bribing toddlers with M&Ms a good way to potty train them? Should pupils be paid to perform better at school? If so, at what age and exactly how? Does choosing a particular name for a baby improve its life chances? For example, through the choice of name alone, is a Brendan likely to do better than a Deshawn? Both the attractions and limitations of this form of economics should already have started to become clear. The subject matter of Freakonomics relates to everyday interests and concerns. It is about practical questions that confront individuals and parents as well as policymakers.

In many ways it is better seen as a form of self-help than economics in the traditional sense. It is an attempt to find better, supposedly more scientific, ways to improve the behaviour of errant individuals. It says little, if anything, about traditional key economic questions such as how to organise production, how to raise productivity or how to create a more prosperous society.

Although the Freakonomics approach is not entirely mainstream it is not marginal either. Gary Becker, also a professor of economics at the University of Chicago, won the Nobel Prize for economics in 1992 for work on similar questions to those raised in the film. Although his work was not aimed at the general public, his concerns were comparable to those of Levitt and Dubner's.

Even mainstream economics, although more concerned with business than Freakonomics, suffers from many of the same weaknesses. Its focus is largely on individual consumer behaviour, its approach is ahistorical and it has little to say about the process of production.

Freakonomics the film, like the book, is entertaining and sometimes thought-provoking. Although it is more self-help than traditional economics it shares many of the weaknesses of more serious works in the discipline.

Its focus on individual behaviour also lends itself to a preoccupation with manipulating individual choices. That is where Freakonomics becomes truly freaky.
7 out of 9 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
7/10
Interesting, Not Mind-Blowing
view_and_review28 November 2021
"Freakonomics" is data analysis of social trends from a less common perspective. For instance, the nationwide drop in the crime rate in the 90's that was attributed to a host of law and order solutions, Steve Levitt, an economist, seeks to prove that it was a result of Roe v. Wade. This is just one example of a deeper and perhaps even a wilder analysis done in the film. The overriding theme was that of incentives and the role incentives play in our lives. It was interesting, but nothing mind-blowing.
1 out of 2 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
3/10
Poor Documentary
angry12721 January 2011
I never read the book, but know that it is very popular. The movie does a bad job at selling the book.

Though, I would still be up for reading the book after having watched the movie. This is because the fault of the movie was only partially due to the content of the book. The movie tries to move along at quick pace at the beginning. It has a very catchy poppy kind of theme to it and talks about a real practical use of the study of economics.

After those 5 minutes, things seem to go terribly south. We get this long and fact lacking piece about sumo wrestling. There is an interesting statistic at the beginning of the segment about how sumo wrestlers will lose matches when there is no real loss to them in order to get payback in the future. The rest of it is exposition about how all the super smart economists are using these fancy numbers and statistics to give very good proof that sumo wrestlers are cheating. I would have liked to hear more about these statistics and the reasoning behind why its very likely that we're cheating. This smug movie instead insults our intelligence and passes by this thinking that we would be too stupid to understand it. The narrator goes on about assassinations of whistle blowers... blala yada yada. I started to lose interest at this point.

There was a part that had an interesting look at why abortion may be one of the key reasons of the drop in crime in the 90's. This really peaked my interest and some convincing figures where given. I liked this segment and am eager to read more about this.

After that is a boring long Good Morning America-esque expose on paying kids to get better grades in school. The kids are annoying, the concept is annoying, the results are paltry, and it all seems pretty meaningless by the time you get to the end of it. This was the segment that really killed the movie. It felt like it went on for an hour, although I'm sure it didn't. This reality show garbage really shouldn't be in any kind of movie that calls itself a documentary.
32 out of 49 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
9/10
Wildly fascinating, through provoking, and entertaining.
takeawalkabout23 February 2011
I don't understand all of the negative reviews. I loved the book and loved the movie.

I think the negative reviews had to have come from people who are skeptical about the validity of statistical data (which makes no sense).

Or just believe that economics and looking at the way data sets can predict outcomes is totally false.

Ney to the Neysayers! I thought the movie was well executed with fun animation to keep attention but most of all the content was king. Cheers to the authors for their fantastic work!
5 out of 14 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
7/10
Some fascinating sections
SnoopyStyle15 September 2014
University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and New York Times journalist Stephen Dubner wrote the popular book taking an unconventional look at the world using the science of economics. This movie takes the ideas from the book into several different sections.

The vast variation does tend to make the movie somewhat meandering and disjointed. Some sections are more interesting than others. It's not a natural narrative that builds to a climax. It's basically one study case after another. The most controversial section is probably the abortion one. Although my personal favorite is the sumo wrestlers. What's there not to love about sumo wrestlers. Sometimes it's a little dumb down but other times it is fascinating.
1 out of 2 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
3/10
Provocative but Poorly Executed
piapaya20 March 2011
I've read the book, which was indubitably very interesting, even if it some claims seemed a tad far-fetched. The documentary, however, has several problems. Firstly, each chapter of the book can EASILY-- actually, SHOULD-- be a documentary of its own. The data used to back up the claims is fairly poor and weak, which is a shame, because some of the ideas really are interesting to explore. But with so little time devoted to them, they don't seem credible. The problem with this documentary and the book is that it makes no effort to refute any counterarguments-- and there are MANY possible ones. It is incredibly easy to lie with statistics and spin numbers to work for you.

Even in terms of entertainment value, it was mediocre, at best. To be frank, I found Dubner and Levitt's commentary extremely annoying. I felt like they were lecturing first graders. The way information was presented in neat little elementary-school-like "what-we-learned- from-this" packages was another annoyance for me.

The main problem with a documentary that attempts to make an argument is that you have to do it in a way that does not make the viewers feel manipulated, which is very difficult (Michael Moore, for instance, sucks at it). And one such as this does not make a solid case for any of its claims and left me with a huge pile of questions. Even if what they say really is true, I can't buy it, because the evidence is presented in such a slapdash, half-baked kind of way.
10 out of 16 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
exasperating obnoxious time wasting overly decorative irritating style
marymorrissey13 August 2011
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!
8 out of 21 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
6/10
Definitely interesting but slightly unsatisfying
mackenziebauman24 May 2020
Warning: Spoilers
I enjoyed the topics and questions brought up by this documentary, but felt that they were gone over too quickly and in a somewhat shallow manner. The film included new ways to think about seemingly mundane activities and occurrences, and almost forces you to think outside of the box. However, you can really only think about what is presented for a couple of minutes before they switch to the next chapter, which entails something almost completely different. Although the segment on sumo wrestling kind of came out of nowhere, it introduced an interesting question between the balance of truth and maintaining a public façade. I liked how the arguments made were supported by statistics and the illustrations made it easier to understand. For example, the disadvantage a person with a traditional "African American" name has in the workplace, compared to a traditional "White" name. In addition, the statistics related to the drop in crime rate as a result of the SCOTUS decision in Roe v. Wade displayed so much correlation to me it was almost shocking. I would recommend this film to those who can keep an open mind about things, and do not mind the fast pace that this movie runs on. Although it was a little difficult to follow at first because there is seemingly a lack of a central theme, I feel that it is important to watch this film to gain a new perspective on aspects of life and human nature.
0 out of 0 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
10/10
Loved the book, love this movie
byucko16 January 2011
The entire thing went by so fast.

To those that are unaware, this movie the the Freakonomics book adapted to a a movie format with flashy colours and animations for those who need more stimulation than just text (though I would highly recommend the book as well since it goes into much more detail). The components are well-done, and Levitt makes very convincing arguments that are hard to dispute. He is a very well respected professor in the field of economics. A little background on him from Wiki: "Winner of the 2004 John Bates Clark Medal, he is currently the William B. Ogden Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, director of the Becker Center on Chicago Price Theory at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and co-editor of the Journal of Political Economy published by the University of Chicago Press"

I like how the previous review just wrote off "incentives", as if they were a minuscule part to any decision. In fact, incentives are the MAIN factors to any decision made, ever. Have you ever taken an economics course? You learn this in the first-year introductory class, I believe. But I'll gladly welcome you to try and disprove hundreds of years of research by brilliant scholars.
6 out of 23 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
4/10
Insincerity is counterbalanced by a lack of dishonesty
airship42226 December 2011
Warning: Spoilers
Freakonomics presents us with these two guys, an economist and a journalist who try to summarize a popular book they authored of the same name. I found it mostly trendy, quirky ways of looking at mostly mundane realities of civilization. There is a lack of cohesion between the "chapters".

The first chapter is about how someones name might be proportional to their success in the economy. There is a chapter on cheating in sumo wrestling in Japan. There is a chapter trying to explain how legalized abortion was the major cause of a decrease in crime in the USA in the late 1980s and early 90s. Finally there is a chapter where the authors intervene at a middle school and offer "incentives" to students who meet a minimum grade. They offer 50 dollars to the students who can obtain a minimum passing grade every month. The incentives don't really prove anything. The authors decide they need to go to preschools, and get them while they are younger. At the end of the film, one of the authors after giving an opaque monologue explaining the themes of the film, then finishes off by saying, "that's total BS wasn't it". I think he pretty much sums it up. The authors insincerity is made up by their lack of dishonesty.

Where this film really shines is in its marketability. The use of trendy rock music, quirky characters, special graphic effects, and conclusions that are fairly uninteresting outside of the context of the film itself. I think this film would most appeal to middle of the road liberal minded people who are not specializing in any particular realm of knowledge.
6 out of 11 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
9/10
Incredible Documentary -- Loved Every Second Of It
gavin69429 March 2011
A collection of documentaries that explores the hidden side of human nature through the use of the science of economics.

I did not read the book, but now feel I do not need to (unless I want to examine the data). The film did such a thorough job of explaining its findings and making it fascinating and somewhat entertaining.

I found out that sumo wrestling may be as rigged as the WWE, though not quite as bad. Black names have an impact on your job prospects, but more interestingly there is a socioeconomic status of white names -- a name's popularity can rise or fall based on social factors.

I learned why not to trust a real estate agent, and that once upon a time people thought ice cream causes polio -- a great lesson in correlation and causation. They went over the controversial claim that legalized abortion lowers violent crime.

And, perhaps the strangest thing of all, a kid makes a tattoo gun out of an electric toothbrush... and even with this mind of ingenuity still cannot pass his classes.

We are guided on this journey by such notable documentary filmmakers as Alex Gibney and Morgan Spurlock.
3 out of 9 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
4/10
Waste of time
shashank21j4 March 2012
Warning: Spoilers
Well i'm not an American, nor Japanese

the examples given are too specific and might have nothing to do with many people in the rest of the world.

The example of ethnicity by names, and sumo wrestlers, they could have given better examples as i was expecting some real economics in this documentary..

too low to be called a documentary. There were some interesting parts of how crime rate reduced by legalizing abortions.

The incentives article made no sense, totally. Do they wanna show incentives work or not?
5 out of 9 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Interesting Documentary
RDOwens25 July 2011
A few of the issues addressed in the book are examined: cheating, paying students, crime.

The crime segment was interesting as statistics were actually used. I didn't quite understand how the percentages were developed for why crime decreased. I do find it interesting that Roe v. Wade is used to explain the reduction of crime in the late 1980s.

I guess I didn't quite follow the sumo controversy too carefully. That a match that doesn't much matter is "thrown" doesn't bother me. When an NFL team has secured a spot in the playoffs, it often doesn't play its stars in a meaningless end of season regular game. I liken the sumo situation to that.

Freakonomics is thought provoking. For that, it is recommended. Treat yourself to an interesting flick.
3 out of 6 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
10/10
Sumo cheating
Mrico168030 March 2011
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.
1 out of 4 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
2/10
Freakonomics. Just make stuff up.
Arashikage212 January 2011
The first scene with the real estate segment is interesting. The rest is useless information and strange hypothesizing about things. With information interpretation one could arrive in opposite conclusions using the same data according to a philosophy that suited him.

The school incentive segment is exceptionally distasteful. Paying kids for doing their homework, great idea, maybe the grading teachers can get in on that deal. These guys appear smart none the less, maybe they should try to understand the underlying causes of these problems and come back with some real answers. Definitely not what you expect to watch and definitely not worth watching it.
14 out of 65 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
8/10
Enjoyable and interesting
Jesseree7 April 2011
First I want to say that I have not read the book and can not compare the film to it, although I am familiar with these types of studies and find them all interesting. I found the film interesting and nicely made, with great animations that get the point across. Everything is explained very well.

They had an interesting order of the bits or chapters, since they kept the first few short and sweet, and then put the longer (for me a bit drawn out) chapters after. I think this is to keep the audiences attention, since I was thinking "well the first ones were short, it can't take much longer till the next one comes", and then some more short ones interspersed with another longer one in between. This is of course subjective, since I did not take my stopwatch out to time them.

All in all, I found the film well done. I hope they make more in the future, since I really enjoyed the little animations and the way it was done in general..
1 out of 4 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
5/10
A bunch of cool stuff with little structure
jtsividis11 June 2013
Warning: Spoilers
I went into this movie hoping to learn about economics. This movie taught me about incentives but it didn't do it well. It included many things that it did not need to. In the sumo wrestling part, I learned more about sumo wrestling than cheating.

If you read this, you won't have to watch the movie: - African American names get called to job interviews 33% less than white names. Put some thought into naming your child because they will be judged by it.

  • People will always cheat.


  • There are patterns in cheating and given enough data, you will find that pattern to catch the cheater.


  • In 1989, crime dropped in America by 50% because abortion was legalized in 1973. This made less unwanted babies get born. Unwanted babies are more likely to turn into criminals because of how they are raised.


  • Incentives matter. Money is not always the best incentive and it won't always work if someone already has everything they want.
1 out of 2 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
An error has occured. Please try again.

See also

Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews


Recently Viewed