My Laughs Were Largely Outsourced...

Rating: 4/10 (2 May 2010)

Sort of like "Thank You for Smoking" a straw man argument is trotted out as controversial (take *that* corporate America). Then this film lays on the false epiphanies for dessert. Tastes a little too much like flat cynical soda served lukewarm on an airline...
Despite the full muscle of a Hollywood production, the inspirational speaker set-up and the lampooning of the stars both serve to cheapen the heartfelt rejection of "real" actors who were laid off, but are/were still actors? I loss my health benefits and all I got was three lines and two days of catered meals? Could have made a "Swede'd" film of this with cardboard cut-outs methinks?
For me, learning long ago about actuary tables for injuries in insurance still hurts like a phantom limb. So seeing people whose lives are ripped asunder for corporate plunder deserve better than this surface reading of the headlines. And I actually think inside companies, there are much more complicated stories to be told. But then I may be replaced here as a reviewer by a contractor any day now...
The rising unemployment rates are depressing enough. I just felt this film was fighting glib with glib. It almost makes the lame, old 80's acronyms (RIF anyone?) seem dignified.
4/10 Thurston Hunger