Dirs: Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott. Canada. 2003. 145mins.

This compelling, hugely ambitious documentary will be required viewing for every left-of-centre intellectual and a bore for the other 95% of the movie-going world. Although its marketing attempts to draw parallels with such populist fare as Michael Moore's Bowling For Columbine, this film is unlikely to reach beyond the converted to whom it is preaching (despite the presence of Moore as one of its commentators). International buyers will be watching the strategy of speciality outfit Zeitgeist, which holds US theatrical rights on the film. Its future will be bright on the festival circuit and brightest on DVD where such information-dense material can benefit from the interactivity of the technology (the cross-referencing to websites alone would occupy a viewer for weeks).

The thesis is instantly engaging: given that the corporation, in the US at any rate, is legally considered a 'person', what sort of person would recklessly endanger people and the environment in the single-minded pursuit of profit without concern for its actions or their consequences' The answer, by the criteria set out by the World Health Organisation' A psychopath.

Based on co-writer Joel Bakan's upcoming book, The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, the film is divided into chapters, which are subdivided into neatly illustrative case studies, bolstered by more than 40 talking heads - both pro and con, although mostly the latter. Its most effective when it juxtaposes the inherent inhumanity of capitalism and the heinous acts of corporations with the earnest human beings who work for them, either as putative masters or servant. Most forthright is the New York stock exchange gold trader who describes his first thought when he heard planes had crashed into the World Trade Centre. 'Gold is going to go up.'

Two investigative journalists describe their fight to expose the dangers of bovine growth hormone marketed by chemical giant Monsanto. Threatened with a lawsuit, their employer, Fox News, demanded changes to the story that the journalists rejected. The journalists were fired, the story was killed. The journalists sued Fox for wrongful dismissal arguing that Fox was asking them to broadcast a story that was false. They won but Fox appealed and the verdict was overturned because a higher court found that it's not actually illegal, in the US at any rate, to falsify the news.

The Corporation premiered at Toronto at a commercially impossible running time of 165 minutes. Trimmed by 20 minutes, the overall effect remains an onslaught as impressive as it is ultimately oppressive. The narration is pointed and delivered with understatement but after two hours the effect is hypnotic. It practically demands a second viewing, which says as much about its social importance as it does of its entertainment value. There are numerous splendid anecdotes during this tour of egregious excess - the US' Bechtel Corporation controlled the water in a Bolivian city, even the rain - but a further 30 minutes could be cut from the film without danger of diluting its impact.

Still, if anyone can do it, Achbar can. He had success with similarly challenging material, having co-directed the highly-regarded 1992 documentary, Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky And The Media, a 165-minute think-piece that was the highest-grossing Canadian documentary until Bowling For Columbine.

Prod co: Big Picture Media Corp.
Int'l sales: Films Transit
Prods: Mark Achbar, Bart Simpson
Scr: Harold Crooks, Joel Bakan, Mark Achbar, based on Bakan's book
DoP: Mark Achbar, Rolf Cutts, Jeff Koffman, Kirk Tougas
Ed: Jennifer Abbott
Music: Leonard J Paul