This doc did what it was trying to. It got me mad. This isn’t a doc about some crazy thing that happened half-way around the world or a hundred years ago. I fly. Not a lot, but I fly… and if the corporate overlords are more interested in their stock prices, then I should be angry. And worried.

This is a very good doc at doing what it sets out to do and with minimal (but not absent) attempts at emotional manipulation. The doc covers a brief history of Boeing as a proud, safety-conscious corporation that got a new set of executives with more interest in profits than engineering. And how that ultimately led to some frightening decisions when they revamped the 747 into the 747 Max. And how two planes had to nose dive into the Earth before the fleet was grounded.

I knew some of the details of this story – I remember the plane crashes and seeing Boeing talking heads on the news. I figured there was a there there but I didn’t follow-up.

The doc talks to a lot of pilots and victim’s families… and a few ex-Boeing employees. But it never really talks to anyone in charge now or even PR talking heads. And what would they have said anyway? They’d have just spewed the company line. But it would have been nice to get the counter argument. In the end, they do get some text statements from Boeing placed on screen… which were about what you’d expect.

The one thing the movie fails to provide is any kind of real information about the changes Boeing made to resolve the issue. They say Boeing says they have fixed it, but they don’t go into the same detail as they went into to explain the design flaw in the first place. They just leave it with ominous images of planes taking off, like they are doomed to fall out of the sky too. And maybe they are… but I think we were owed an explanation of the fix, even if it’s out of the PR handbook.

Other than that though, I think this is a very informative and anger-inducing documentary. It doesn’t actively and obviously try rabble-rousing emotional manipulation tactics… though it definitely has a underlaying anger that isn’t hidden. I… enjoyed?… this doc.

Score: 85