Getting Grilled

Interspersed among the interviews, Crooks has added graphics and archival footage, such as scenes of top executives from companies including Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Barclays Plc getting grilled by U.S. and U.K. legislators. Less interesting is Crooks’ use of aerial shots of storms brewing, or traffic signs in the City of London, that are meant to keep the eye busy and underscore the thematic metaphors.

Crooks is trying a tricky thing: telling a story with many competing voices and no consistent narrator. The only overarching voiceover intones at the beginning of the documentary, as beautifully ominous storm clouds float by: “Throughout the world, inequality is soaring to new heights, and the wealth of nations that once provided prosperity for the majority has gone missing.”

The result is a film that is in parts heavy-handed, and sometimes disjointed, but praise-worthy for making sense of the arcane subject of corporate taxes.

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