Can McLibel beat George Clooney?

Date 20th Feb 2006

Submitted by Nic Seton on 20 February 2006 - 10:36am

ROUND UP OF MCLIBEL UK CINEMA REVIEWS
Publication: Variety
Sorry, we're getting overloaded with reviews (in a good way), so have just whacked them all in here. Promise to sort out soon, honest.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Mail on Sunday. 19.2.06
By Jason Solomons
"Beating their arch enemy."
Two old-fashioned socialists took on McDonald's and won. Former postman David Morris and gardener Helen Steel endured the longest trial in English legal history, representing themselves for most of the 314 days against serried ranks of corporate lawyers.
But they eventually triumphed against the way the golden-arched giant marketed itself to children, the nutritional benefit of its food and the way it treated its workers.
Young director Franny Armstrong might justly claim McLibel to be the longest shoot in British film history, being a passionate and entertaining documentary sculpted from years spent following the duo on their crusade. "They're heroes of our time", says one witness of David and Helen, but Armstrong's film never builds them as such, admirably letting us decide.
McDonald's is cast as the monster here, gobbling up trees, property, animals, people and the law but the film duly gives the corporation room to defend itself, although, as time goes on, that could read 'rope to hang itself'.
McLibel nicely balances the emotions of anti-corporate rhetoric with the individual human strength and determination of David and Helen.
(Four stars out of five)
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Daily Express 17.2.06
Freedom of speech is central to this fascinating documentary on the titanic battle between environmentalists Helen Steel and Dave Morris and McDonald's.
When the duo distributed leaflets alleging that McDonald's meals were unhealthy and their business practices were unethical, the company sued them for libel. McDonald's spent 10 million pounds on the case. Gardener Helen and postman Dave were not even allowed legal aid. Their refusal to bow down eventually resulted in a landmark ruling from the European Court of Human rights.
Using their own record of events and dramatised reconstructions of the trial, McLibel is a heartening illustration that determined individuals can topple giants and change the world.
(Four stars)

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Independent on Sunday
Stirring documentary about the UK campaigners who triumphed in the courts after refusing to apologise to the mighty McDonald's.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Sunday Telegraph 19.2.06
Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me (2004) had the surprising impact of making me want to find the nearest Big Mac - they looked rather good on screen. McLibel luckily had no such effect. This documentary follows two British campaigners who represented themselves in court against McDonald's after being libelled for highlighting the company's unethical politics. Some ugly truths are exposed.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

BBC Movie Site
www.bbc.co.uk/films/2006/02/13/mclibel_2006_review.shtml
Reviewed by Matthew Leyland
Updated 12 February 2006
A true underdog story, McLibel succinctly documents the tale of David Morris and Helen Steel, two activist friends sued by McDonald's over a pamphlet that put fast food in the firing line. The resulting trial ending up becoming the longest in UK legal history, costing the Big Mac-makers around £10 million. From obesity and animal cruelty to the exploitation of pester power, the issues are dissected in a digestible, no-extra-relish format. Conversely, a lack of cinematic pizzazz means it'll play better on the box. But this is still a tasty companion piece to Super Size Me.
Like Morgan Spurlock, the defendant duo's beef isn't so much with McDonald's per se. As former postman David puts it, "This is about the public's right to know what the most powerful organisations in the world, multi-national corporations, are really doing." While neither he nor his pal share Spurlock's natural charisma (Helen admits she's camera-shy), the very fact of their unassuming ordinariness inspires all the more.
Stretching back to 1986 (when the Everything They Don't Want You To Know pamphlet was first produced), events are functionally re-told via interviews, diary entries and courtroom reconstructions. While this David and Goliath story has a happy ending, it's also honest enough to count the personal costs that taking a stand can incur. Further flavour's added to the menu by Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser and by ex-Ronald McDonald actor Geoffrey Giuliano, who says he felt like "the man in the Third Reich who was propaganda minister". Lovin' it...
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

New Statesman
www.newstatesman.com/200602200046
William Skidelsky applauds a protest
Monday 20th February 2006

The mind may forget nauseous trauma, but the body never does, writes William Skidelsky
The last time I ate a McDonald's hamburger, I was violently sick later that same night. That was when I was eight years old. Since then, avoiding McDonald's has been not so much a conscious decision as a self-preservative instinct. The mind may forget nauseous trauma, but the body never does. When, aged 18, I drove around America with a friend, steering clear of McDonald's wasn't always easy. After a day on the road the prospect of instant sustenance, for not much money, seemed appealing. This being America, however, alternatives invariably lay close at hand, and I ate more Burger King Whoppers on that trip than I care to remember.
By and large I have come to regard my exclusion from the Republic of the Golden Arches as a blessing. Ronald McDonald, the company's sinister clown mascot, has never had any hold over me. I was freshly reminded of my good fortune the other day when I watched the anti-McDonald's documentary McLibel, which has just been released as a full-length feature, a shorter version having been shown on TV last year. One of the film's most powerful scenes is a covert video recording of an appearance by Ronald McDonald at a children's fun day. As excited children gather around the grinning clown, who is handing out stickers, I was reminded of nothing so much as a paedophile priming his victims by doling out sweeties.
The film, a sort of British counterpart to Super Size Me, tells the story of two activists, Helen Steel and Dave Morris, who took on McDonald's in the courts - something that few people had ever dared do. In 1990, McDonald's issued libel writs against both of them after they had been involved in an anti-McDonald's leaflet campaign. Rather than retract their allegations, they stood their ground. McDonald's took them to court, and there followed a three-year trial, the longest in English legal history. Its outcome was inconclusive: the judge upheld some of the McDonald's complaints, but not others. However, it turned into a huge PR disaster for the corporation, and helped ensure that it would think twice about suing anyone else for libel. It is now possible to criticise McDonald's openly, where previously it seemed that it wasn't. In effect, Steel and Morris's stubbornness cleared the way for the anti-fast-food movement, and everything good that has come from it.
Rather than embracing their celebrity activist status, Steel and Morris remain self-effacing. They have gone back to doing what they used to do - campaigning on local issues (they are now protesting against an arms factory in Brighton). Their story, brilliantly captured in Franny Armstrong's film, is a genuinely inspiring tale of how, in our increasingly standardised world, people who stand up for their principles can make a difference.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
The Observer, 19.2.06
Philip French
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1712907,00.html

..... A rather healthier approach to a related subject is to be found in McLibel, which is getting a few weeks in cinemas between its successful screening on TV last year and its appearance on a two-disc video on the Revelation label. Franny Armstrong's first-rate documentary (with dramatisations of the marathon High Court trial directed by Ken Loach) concerns the libel action brought against Helen Steel and David Morris for distributing 'What's Wrong With McDonald's?' leaflets outside its fast-food joints. This David and Goliath story of the globalisation era is instructive, exciting and often hilarious. McDonald's executives look like shady heavies from central casting and their use of private detectives to infiltrate the protest group brings to mind The Man Who Was Thursday, GK Chesterton's story about an anarchist cell in which secret policemen far outnumbered subversives. As someone says, this was the worst corporate PR disaster in history.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
The Guardian
http://film.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/Critic_Review/Guardian_review/0,,1...
Andrew Pulver
Friday February 17, 2006
Two ordinary people v Ronald's empire ... McLibel
A video-diary chronicle of the legal action fought between two dead-serious leftwing activists and fast-food behemoth McDonald's over the contents of a single leaflet. The wider story is well-known - how the big-money types took advantage of UK libel laws and how, without legal aid, the campaigners had to defend themselves in court. But, as seen from the inside, there's a pleasing they-shall-not-pass feel to Helen Steel and Dave Morris's exhausting endeavour - which concludes with new material after their success in the European courts - as well as weird little revelations, like the infiltrator who turned up in a BMW. What's most evident, though, is the astonishing effect that the internet has had on this type of activism, converting eccentric political nerds into heroic techno warriors practically overnight.
Knackered, awkward, self-deprecating and (in Dave's case, especially) warm - these two unlikely winners seem incorruptible. Hollywood loves this kind of thing. A McMovie can't be far off. Help!
(3 stars)

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
The Times
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,14931-2042050,00.html
McLibel
By Wendy Ide
Already shown on television, McLibel now gets a cinematic release. A documentary about the long-running court battle between the fast food giant McDonald's and the gardener and postman who refused to be bullied, this likeable film is the flipside of the bombastic Michael Moore style of activism - mild-mannered but unmovable, impassioned but resolutely down-to-earth. Even though we all know how the story ends, this is a very watchable little film about a big battle.
(3 stars)

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Channel 4 website
www.channel4.com/fourdocs/blog/index.jsp

Word-of-mouth documentary phenomenon Mc Libel is finally getting a cinema release 11 years after production started on it. The film, made by FourDocs interviewee Franny Armstrong, tells the story of "The Postman and the Gardener who took on McDonalds. And won." But you probably know that already, since according to the production team's estimates, 22 million people have seen the film already - and that was BEFORE the April 2005 updated cut of the film was shown on the BBC and released on DVD around the world. Not bad for an indie doc that essentially came out of Franny's living room and achieved the profile it currently has through sheer persistence and conviction. Congratulations from all of FourDocs to everyone involved with the film
We reckon that even if you've seen the film already, you should definitely go and see it in the cinema - not just to show your support for the distribution of great independent docs in British cinemas, but also because it'll look absolutely amazing on the big screen! It's on at Odeon Wardour Street in Soho, London (one cinema for their one 35mm print!) but it'll hopefully be touring the country and the world very soon too. Now go and book your tickets.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Evening Standard
Ronald Wont be Lovin It
Charlotte O'Sullivan - 16 February 2006
Still smarting from its bashing at the hands of Super Size Me, McDonald's comes in for yet another assault with the release of a documentary about the dynamic duo who started the backlash.
Back in 1986, gardener Helen Steel and postman Dave Morris dared to criticise America's most carnivorous clown. In 1990 they found themselves in court and seven gruelling years later scored a PR victory that is still making waves.
Shot over 10 years, Franny Armstrong's film goes behind the scenes of the pair's landmark trial and - as well as offering insights into DIY protest - proves suspensful, funny and moving.
Ken Loach filmed the dramatised court scenes. Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser, meanwhile, pops up to praise the London activists and - unintentionally - reveals what makes them so special. He's a well dressed smoothy-chops who seems more than a little seduced by fame.
(Four stars. Joint highest rating of the week! George Clooney's 'Good Night and Good Luck' got 3 and Heath Ledger's 'Casanova' got 2.)
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

The Sunday Times
www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2101-2041555,00.html
Receiving a limited cinema release, Franny Armstrong's film is a supersized version of her 1998 documentary about Dave Morris and Helen Steel, the campaigners who refused to back down when McDonald's threatened a libel action in response to an unflattering leaflet the pair had helped to write. The company's eventual legal victory was decidedly pyrrhic, thanks to the damaging evidence that Morris and Steel gathered while handling their own defence. Interviews with some of the anti-Mac witnesses, among them a former Ronald McDonald, provide the sparkiest moments in a plain account of events. In the art of using moving pictures to publicise the horrors of fast food, Morgan Spurlock remains by far the highest achiever. Three stars
(3 stars)
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

BBC Radio 5 Live. 17.2.2006
(transcript of radio show)
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rmhttp/downloadtrial/fivelive/markkermodesfil...
Mark Kermode: McLibel, which is a documentary about these two guys who took on McDonald's. They published a leaflet, said a whole bunch of things about McDonald's. McDonald's sued them, they went to court. And you may have seen a television version of this documentary which ended up with McDonald's winning. Then they their case to the European Court of Human Rights and they then won at least some of their case at the European Court.
It is directed by Franny Armstrong and the drama stuff in it is done by Ken Loach. And it sounds terribly worthy, but I introduced it at the London Children's Film Festival and they had a discussion afterwards with young members of the audience who'd come along to see it.
It's a terrific piece of work. It's really interesting. It's out very briefly in the cinema in this expanded form and then onto DVD and it's really, really good. It's a real David and Goliath struggle. And you end up when they're waiting for the European Court ruling to come in, really edge of the seat stuff. It's terrific.
Mark's pal: Yes. Edge of the seat and European Court hasn't normally gone together, but here it is for a first.