Hammerman Ikon

Hammerman Ikon Film Guide

Before the Flood
2016
****
Director: Fisher Stevens
Cast:

For this thought-provoking documentary, Leonardo DiCaprio and his film crew traveled across the globe to document evidence of man-made climate change. The host shows us how the carbon emissions from human activity are responsible for the shrinking glaciers of Greenland, the flooding street of Miami, and the dying coral reefs of the Caribbean, among many other devastating effects. These events are interconnected and ever increasing. It's a gloomy picture with a small glimmer of hope. Global warming is nearing the irreversible tipping point, but there are things we can do. DiCaprio is mockingly aware that his celebrity status is a double-edged sword for this important cause, but at least you cannot accuse him for jumping on the band wagon. He has been a vocal environmentalist from the late 1990s when he met vice-president Al Gore, who starred in the Oscar winning An Inconvenient Truth. This documentary presents more or less the same arguments, only with more cinematic verve.