THE GRAB - Mark Reviews Movies

The Grab, Magnolia Pictures

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | June 13, 2024

The importance of the story within The Grab should be noted first. It's the sort of narrative that makes us rethink the way we see the world, because it questions what many people, especially in developed countries, take for granted. The central question of the film has to do with food and water resources, how and why they're diminishing or the control of them is shifting, and what the consequences of those changes will be.

We could, in theory, live without oil, which had been the driving force of world economies and various conflicts throughout recent history, and one day, we might. An interview subject here reminds us that economic drivers of the past have included spices, cotton, and various minerals, so apart from some of the rarer minerals that are required for modern technology, most of that economic history is just that—history.

Water and food, though, are different beasts entirely. Another interviewee here recalls a fairly famous concept that only nine meals stand between social order and chaos, because starving people or people who become certain they will starve in the immediate future do not care about economics, politics, laws, customs, or any of the other thin veneers that separate humanity from our animal instincts for survival.

If you and/or your family cannot eat, there is little you wouldn't do to correct that. If even a certain percentage of people in a city or region or country find themselves in that situation, that is hundreds, thousands, or millions of people who will stop at almost nothing to fix the problem.

Now, imagine that across multiple countries or even on a global scale. The ideas of this documentary are frightening on a level that's difficult to describe, and the most terrifying part of director Gabriela Cowperthwaite's film is how it quickly and thoroughly moves beyond the realm of imagination. This kind of international crisis is about to happen, and we know it because some very wealthy and powerful people are preparing for that inevitability.

That some of those same people and entities may have caused the problem, by way of nearly unfettered industrialization and resource-mining, is almost irrelevant at this point. It certainly seems to be for them. They and others have profited by fundamentally changing and ruining the natural order of the planet, and now, they'll find a way to profit off of the change and ruin they created.

If you're angry, that's good. If you're skeptical, that's unfortunate but somewhat understandable, particularly if that skepticism comes from disbelief that human beings could let something like this happen and be so callous about it. The film doesn't care either way, though, because the other noteworthy part of this documentary is how it deals in cold, hard facts. It makes its case without emotions or politics or some agenda to push, and honestly, one almost hopes the filmmakers will give us any of that, if only because the evidence leads to a conclusion that's utterly bleak.

The primary subjects of the film are a trio of investigative reporters with the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR), who, when Cowperthwaite films them, have spent almost a decade looking into the problem and the specific people and companies trying to ensure financial gain, as well as power, for themselves in the face of it. The main journalist is Nate Halverson, a completely unassuming guy who doesn't seem to have any sort of ulterior motive.

He is often too nervous in front of a camera to imagine he's seeking some kind of fame. He lives and dresses in a perfectly mundane way, and when Halverson talks, it's never about himself—only about the story and, if he's going to promote anyone, what his teammates have done to crack some part of the investigation. He's comes across as too boring to want to become a celebrity or wealthy, and hopefully, that's taken as it's intended—as a compliment to Halverson looking, sounding, and acting like the epitome of what an investigative journalist should be.

Halverson and two of his CIR colleagues, Mallory Newman and Emma C. Schwartz, take us through the investigation, which unknowingly started in 2014, when a Chinese company bought a U.S. one that does business in pigs. The purchase would give the foreign interest—which, as the journalist uncovered, has direct ties to the Chinese government—control of a quarter of the pork in the United States. As Halverson begins covering other and seemingly unrelated agricultural business deals around the world, he finds a pattern.

At the core of the story is climate change, which the reporters and film rightly treat as a fact—if only because the people, companies, and countries buying land and other resources associated with food or water accept it as a fact, too. They're acting for the future, and in the present, the team does what any good reporter does and follows the money. What they discover is often shocking, involving mercenaries and figuring out why Russia would invade Ukraine in 2022 a couple years beforehand, and disheartening, as people in Arizona find their private wells run dry and everyday people in Africa are forcibly removed from their land in a new but depressingly familiar form of colonialism.

The Grab makes a firm case that we're on the precipice of a different kind of world—if we haven't fallen off it already. The reactions to it have started—some in courts and through legislation but also by way of violence. The film is less convincing in suggesting it might not be too late, but it ends when the journalists' job is finished for us to reckon with and, hopefully, do something about it.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products