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Rating: Country: USA Release Date: April 28, 2009 Distributor: First Run Features Director: · Leslie Carde Related Sites: · IMDb: America Betrayed Grade: B

Without a great deal of subtlety, and the occasional bout of weepy-eyed allegory with heightened score, “America Betrayed” reveals the unsurprising realities behind the “boy’s club” mentality of cost-cutting and back scratching that ultimately leads to the disintegration of the national infrastructure. This is not to imply that the documentary is unnecessarily cloying, rather, it mixes good, solid information with emotional angst, which works on a laymen level, but dilutes the message from an academic perspective. Exacerbating this issue is a voiceover from Richard Dreyfuss that seems half-assed at best, requiring substantially more revision to communicate its intended point.

Filmmaking follies aside, the actual information presented in the documentary, and the implications therein, are extremely vital, if familiar, in their need to be conveyed to the apathetic, almost fatalistic (as suggested by Hilary Clinton) masses.

Referencing lefty hipsters like Naomi Klein and featuring interviews with Time Magazine’s Michael Grunwald, environmental law expert Oliver Houck, Levees.org founder Sandy Rosenthal and many other scientists, journalists and inside (wo)men that were demoted and threatened as a result of their vocalizing proclivities, the doc examines why and how the infrastructure is crumbling.

In general, the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) receive funds and directions from Congress, after winning contracts for rebuilding projects, only to then re-appropriate the funds back towards said Congress-members to help ensure their re-election, thus ensuring that the cycle of back-scratching continues, as pointed out by Dr. Robert Bea in the documentary.

The problem here is that levees, and other support systems, such as those in New Orleans that gave out during Hurricane Katrina, are being built with substandard materials, and are not passing general quality assurance audits. The result, as we all know, is human life.

Much time is spent in New Orleans interviewing victims that remain homeless years later, as the government puts its money into the war, ignoring their needs, while the FEMA trailers cause rampant illness amongst surviving victims due to high quantities of permeated Formaldehyde.

In dwelling on this example, the documentary attempts to reveal cronyism within government agencies, and is successful, given how overt this is to anyone with any sort of education. Anyone looking for some insight on political handlings and misfires in national disasters should be pleased with the documentary, despite the fact that it’s quite dry and structurally just adequate.

DVD bonus features include an interview with Leslie Carde and deleted scenes, which were not available on the screener disc provided to press.