Power Trip
Power Trip
| 17 December 2003 (USA)
Power Trip Trailers

Corruption, assassination and street rioting surround the story of the award-winning film, Power Trip, which follows an American multi-national trying to solve the electricity crisis in Tbilisi, capital of the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. Power Trip provides insight into today's headlines, with a graphic, on-the-ground depiction of the challenges facing globalization in an environment of culture clash, electricity disconnections and blackouts.

Reviews
ChampDavSlim The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.
Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.
Scotty Burke It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review
Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.
williams-bd Nothing too funny about this one. A lot of it is rather tragic actually. It gives us a glimpse of the difficulties these former Soviet citizens are facing as their states continue to transition. Of all the transitions that must be made, electricity seems like a rather small one, but as the film shows it still has an enormous impact. I don't believe the film was corporate propaganda but it offers no criticism of how AES handled the situation. Likewise, the corruption it does depict is located in the Geogian Ministry.Beyond the whole electricity/post Soviet theme, there is some decent exposure to the Georgian people and landscape. Watch out for a few brutal images of a murdered man and an electrified man.
someguy889 The purpose of Documentaries is usually to inform, but they are also the best character studies, filled with real people in real situations. Great documentaries can have social messages and come to conclusions about society (Bowling for Columbine, Fog of War) while others are great but on a much simpler and human level (Spellbound, Winged Migration). Power Trip is a documentary which attempts to do both and succeeds partially, but not completely and not to the level of greatness. It is a good film at most. It is about the electricity problem in Georgia. Director Paul Devlin interviews many people, all of them interesting, some of them touching. He interviews Piers Lewis the most, a man who will not cut his hair until they get something right in Georgia. It was filmed in the course of three years with a handheld camera, and this shows. Some of the most touching moments come when Devlin decides to show us some of the beautiful Georgian countryside, or zoom in on a child's face. Some characters are boring, though influential, some overstay their visit and some you wish for more, like an old man who shows us his vineyard in the countryside. The film is well done in the end, informative and touching at the same time. Interesting variety of characters, boring to trajic, this movie is at the same time political and individual. However at the end, it is a bit incomplete and inconclusive, which is perhaps the point, but leaves this documentary only at good.My grade: 7/10
Edgar Soberon Torchia A disturbing documentary on a Capitalist electricity company trying to "bring the light" (efficient electricity service) to Georgia, the former Soviet republic, which has been tauted as "entertaining" and "funny", as if it were a "Saturday Night Live" sketch. One has to have lived in a Socialist country (as I did) to fully understand the situation of the Georgian people (or any other country previously ruled by a Socialist regime.) I found nothing funny about the situation of Georgia. It's rather tragic. After you've lived in a system in which you may have paid 40 dollars for rent, 5 for telephone or 10 for electricity, it becomes completely absurd when your bills take most of your salary, as in the Capitalist society most of us live in, to pay for the wealth of the Earth that belongs to every single soul on this planet. The sudden presence of a transnational company (that is ruthless, no matter if its officials claim the opposite) in those countries, where political corruption, greed and totalitarian methods helped to mine its social and economic system, has very little to laugh about. On top of that, foreign official in Georgia Pier Lewis, who constantly makes fun of the company's methods (as cutting power for a few minutes in an airport for not paying its bills, when a plane was about to land) and the Georgian people's reactions, is a rather pathetic character, making one wonder if he's ever heard the word humanism. 2/10.
patvet What problems do you expect as an American "global power company" when you purchase the former national power distribution company of the Georgian capitol Tbilisi? Maybe not even half the problems AES Corp. has to deal with once they did purchase the company. Corruption, political assassinations, street rioting, major blackouts and people who were never used to pay for their electricity at all. Manager Piers Lewis must try to make this expedition a success, but does he succeed? Very amusing documentary with beautiful Georgian music.
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