WasAnnon Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Titreenp SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Yash Wade Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Jerrie It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

The Couchpotatoes A documentary like Merchants of Doubt should be mandatory in schools. Just so that the kids can open their eyes about the influence of the media on the brainwashed Americans, lobbyists of all kind and maleficent greedy people. I already did not have a great view about certain humans before watching this documentary and at the end it certainly did not improve. The power of those greedy bastards from the petrol, tobacco, and guns lobbies is just sickening to watch. The amount of conservative people that will take anything for granted if it comes out of their mouths is just frightening. Republican rednecks, I just can't stand them. Most of them are so stupid you wonder how it is possible to be that ignorant. Anyways, this documentary is really a must see if you are interested in the future of our planet. I already know the vast majority of rednecks won't change their opinion because they are just not smart enough to see the truth or they are just to stubborn to admit they were wrong. Bottom line, I hate a lot of humans on this planet.

davidstead-72064 Please note - I do not wish to express an opinion on whether the climate is warming or what may be responsible for it if it is. I only want to talk about the structure of this movie.OK, so the _point_ of this movie is to reinforce the idea that the climate is warming, and that it is man that is causing the warming through excessive usage of carbon. Secondarily, it supports the notion of a carbon tax to "battle global warming".How do they do it? First, they introduce an enemy no one can argue against - tobacco.They correctly show how professional deceivers and manipulators, "PR" companies, facilitated the continued killing of people all over the planet by weaving "doubt" into the public debate and therefore diluting the opinion against tobacco and short-circuiting or at least delaying and neutering laws that would tend to increase cigarette regulation.They interlace the magician/card-man into the narrative to sort of get you on their side by making you feel like an "insider", as if they are taking you into a private confidence.We are shown the magic and legal tricks and then we are shown the "suckers" who fall for the tricks. This makes us feel superior to the victims and reinforces the "insider" illusion. It _is_ an illusion because we are NOT insiders. We are just people watching a movie. No secrets are ever revealed.After they take us through the tobacco episode, they throw-in 3-card Monty and talk about the whole scam. For extra emphasis they even make the dealer and his shill black men just to take it over the top. After all, those guys cannot be trusted. Right? The use of racist stereotypes should be a clue for us as to the nature and character of the film makers. Once they firmly plant the idea that there are those who willingly deceive us for profit or other motives, and who are "bad men", we are set up to disbelieve anyone in a suit, or even any "so-called-expert" who tends to contradict the common opinion, after all everyone KNEW tobacco was killing people, it was the common opinion among the enlightened.And now for the point of the whole trick - Global Warming. Right off the bat they show us a science type, adjacent to the previously shown liars and con men as if in a prison line-up, who just happens to be presenting some pretty good evidence that there is more to global warming than just us driving our cars and heating our houses.BAM - guilt by association. And you never saw it coming.The thing is this: whatever you think about climate warming, that this film has deceived us by obvious manipulation should be an alarm. It goes to the character and intent of the film maker, and whether we should allow into our minds the "facts" they pretend to present.This film is a great piece of propaganda, whatever you think of the issue itself.I highly recommend it to students of manipulation. Compare to: the Fishead movie.

CleveMan66 "There are two sides to every story and truth is usually somewhere in the middle." That's my version of the famous quote. No matter how honest the person telling the story, as a human being, he or she will almost inevitably choose to relate and interpret the facts in such a way that supports the speaker's point of view and will leave out or distort facts that might support the other point of view. I've never known a person to be completely honest and unbiased in explaining a controversy or relating an incident in which certain facts are in dispute. No matter who you are, your version of events will also be colored to some degree by your experiences, your memories, your perceptions or even your need to be right. Therefore, the factual, unvarnished, objective truth (assuming such a thing can be determined in a given situation) almost always sits somewhere between opposing points of view. So, the real question is, whether the real truth of the matter is closer to one position or the other. That's the question that needs to be answered by anyone trying to evaluate opposing arguments or differing versions of an event. The same question needs to be answered by anyone viewing a documentary with a clearly defined point of view, especially one on a controversial topic.Take "Merchants of Doubt" (PG-13, 1:36) for example. Based on the acclaimed book of the same name by scientists and historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, this movie tells the story of the scientists who have spoken out in favor of the predominant perspective of big business on whether tobacco smoking, acid rain, the hole in the earth's ozone layer and, especially, climate change, were real and/or harmful. The thesis of the book and the movie is that these scientists were essentially hired guns, blasting away at widely accepted scientific verdicts on each of those issues. The book's authors and the documentary's producers believe that these "contrarians" have been engaged in a deliberate campaign to muddy the waters regarding these issues in the hopes of derailing or, at least, delaying government intervention that would lead to increased regulation of business and a resulting decrease in profits for the companies and industries that would be forced to change their business practices to adhere to new government rules. In short, if these scientists are weighing in on these issues for the purpose of confusing lawmakers and the public, and are doing it for money, then they are Merchants of Doubt."Figures don't lie, but liars figure" is a good quote to summarize what the filmmakers feel these contrarians have been doing for decades. The documentary's descriptions of how scientists publicly denied that tobacco smoking, acid rain and the hole in the ozone layer were harmful are meant to establish a pattern of behavior leading up to more recent controversies over global warming and climate change. It's not that these aren't scientists. They are… or they are, at least, men with science credentials, but not necessarily in the specific areas on which they are opining and commenting. Beyond that, the contrarians are doing little or no actual scientific research themselves. Rather, they are picking over the methods, data and conclusions of others in an attempt to twist the science to fit their own point of view. Or so the movie's theory goes. The film decides that these scientists are doing it for the money they receive (often secretly) from big business and also because these scientists see increased government regulation as a threat to free enterprise. In other words, these are scientists who, in previous decades, took sides in the Cold War, with its threats to the American way of life, and are now fighting an information war against some of those same threats. The irony, claims the movie, is that helping to delay government action to mitigate the harm caused by the aforementioned byproducts of the modern industrial age makes the problems worse and eventually leads to even more government intervention to deal with even more serious problems."Merchants of Doubt" benefits from the meticulous research done by the books' authors and brings their perspective to life by way of damning facts, numerous interviews, slick graphics, and even a magician, along with certain more questionable methods. The reputations of undeniably accomplished scientists are harmed by innuendo, certain facts are assumed to apply to all similar people and similar situations, and the contrarians, although their words do appear in the film, are never given the opportunity to directly refute the claims against them. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Even though the facts and information this documentary presents make a compelling case that the truth is closer to the filmmakers' perspective, it is still not the whole truth. "B"

bbickley13-921-58664 When I saw the trailer for the move I was under the impression that the movie was going to be about so-called "experts" who get paid by certain businesses to say that their product is safe but it really is not. The movie begins like that but it ends with propaganda about Global warming that does not completely focus on the purpose of the film. Yeah, they start out with the obvious, Smoking. No matter what you think, smoking is bad for you, everyone knows that, that's a given. They lay out the info of why smoking is bad for you and how the Tobacco companies miss guide you into believing this is not true, including hiring scientist who beliefs on the subject differ than the beliefs of every other scientist, and passing those scientist off as people who are not being paid to tell you that smoking is OK. The film does this for I think two more subjects in the first thirty or so minutes. Than it goes into Global warming.Honestly, my opinion of this movie has nothing to do with my opinion with Global warming, but I must say I don't like to be preached to, especially when that preaching seems to be your own personal agenda. That's what I got from this movie, a lot of info about Global warming being our fault, beaten over my head like I just spilled grape juice on my mom's carpet. I understood the segments about smoking because these segments are well- rounded (ironically because these segments do lean towards one opinion greatly). In fairness to the filmmakers just saying "don't smoke" is actually in perspective a lot easier to comprehend. The movie reminds me of America: Imagine the World without her, in which filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza made a lot a very good, but not favorable points on African Americans, Native Americans, Capitalism, and a few other topics, but it all went down the toilet when he made the movie his own personal agenda about him vs. Obama. That's what happen with this flick.I think this documentary would have worked better if I saw at lease a glimpse of a solution to the problem which I never got. If they looked hard enough, I'm sure they could have found someone (or paid a Scientist) to come up with one, but all I get was the complaint and that's not worth watching.