BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

SteinMo What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

Bluebell Alcock Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Melanie Bouvet The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

protek22 The Take is one of the most informative economic and political documentaries currently available. The issues Ms. Klein and her colleagues chronicle, are of extreme importance for anyone seeking to gain a factual understanding of today's most pressing economic and political issues. Argentina had been a poster child for the globalization and neoliberal economic policies promoted by the U.S., the World Bank, and the IMF. While these policies are still being widely hailed by the mainstream media as the wave of the future, their truly destructive nature is actually understood by very few. This film allows the viewer to witness the catastrophic economic and political challenges that brought Argentina to it's knees, and the inspired solution implemented by Argentinian workers, as they rallied from the depths of economic and political despair, to redeem themselves from the clutches of corrupt politicians, and global financiers.

manuel-pestalozzi This movie claims, that the situation it presents the viewers with could occur anywhere in the world and that the takeover of closed factories by their workers is a recipe against the negative effect of world wide globalization.The first assertion is clearly wrong. Argentina is a specific place with a specific history. Its industry was created to serve the home market. Peron's and later the Peronist's power base were the industrial workers whose unions were brought into line with strong arm tactics. Industry has always been a highly politicized affair in that country, it was protected from international competition for a very long time. Therefore nobody invested in the renewal of machinery, in the 1980s they still produced the Ford Falcon model of the 1950s (maybe they still do?). Pepole could always be sure that the export of agricultural produce would support an industry which was neither very productive nor competitive. I think oil producing Venezuela and Iran are in a similar position today (in the way politics, economics and ideologies are mixed together). President Menem – incidentally a Peronist brought to power as the champion of the little man – lifted the protective shield and brought to light the frailty of the legal as well as the economical and social system of Argentina. No wonder many businesses collapsed, leaving huge debts behind.It defies belief that the adversaries of globalization just think that by putting the lid back on, returning to a protected market, everything will be well. This would neither create fairer conditions nor would it secure more equality or welfare for the future.For the second assertion the movie surprises with a disconcerting lack of proof. Very little is explained. How do these enterprises pay for raw materials? Where are their markets? How do they find customers? Do they make a profit? Most of these questions are not even addressed although they are essential if the „model" should work. And as much as one can understand the outrage of seeing people willing to work being forced from their place of employment, there are some legal issues which should have been considered. If I understood it right, the workers took the bankrupt factories lock, stock and barrel, leaving the accumulated debts – to who? Mustn't there be some losers around somewhere? Isn't this part of the time-honed Argentine tradition of eating the cake before having it? I regret to say that I found this movie overly romantic and simplistic. It fails to deliver what it promises to do at the outset.

Morten W. Hansen First of all I'm personally left'ish, so I was not completely bulletproof to the message in "The Take"What annoys me about this movie comes in two categories: 1) Form 2) Content1) Form is "relatively" unimportant as it is a documentary. Never the less I found it annoying with all those shots of statues against a red sky with sad background music. Also the intro was extremely long and dragged on forever. I felt like screaming "Get on with it!!! What are those poor workers doing now?!?!" as the zillion'th shot of abandoned factory halls rolled across the silver screen. And the speak (Argentina's fall from grace + hubris + neo liberal heresy) was to theatrical for my taste. Finally the constant repetitions of a few key messages (with variations) gave a kind of TV-commercial-feeling which didn't help the film's credibility.2) I found it disturbing that the film was very vague about the "hardcore" economic angle. Especially when the political angle was so clear. This gives an aura of "things not being told because they don't fit into Lewis&Klein's view of the world". I don't know if that is the truth, but i was the feeling I was left with at the end of the film.All in all not a very good film. It lacks as a documentary (simply too many loose claims that were never proved). As a political statement my notion is that it "preach to the believers" e.g. it targets those who agree on the agenda and confirms their opinion. On the upside though, it does try to set a positive agenda in contrast to for instance Michael Moore's eternal gloom. But they lack Moore's sharp irony and satire which at least would have made this picture entertaining.The central problem about this movie is this: "Is it a documentary or is it a political statement?"I rate it 4/10 as it wasn't a total disaster as a political statement (though a bit boring and quite predictable) but neither was it good journalist/documentarist craftsmanship

dan_sprocket This movie helps progressive people address one of the main criticisms of the right and capitalists: what would you do differently if capitalism and globalization is so bad? Argentina was a country where public utilities had been sold off and money fled the country. Factories were left empty, owing millions of dollars in taxes to various levels of government. The workers thought: we don't have jobs, so we can't buy things for our families. There are no jobs, because people aren't buying things for their families. So they broke the cycle, and with government approval (eventually) occupied the factories and just started producing items for themselves and their neighbors. The co-operative/collectivist movement in Argentina flourished.The movie shows it was far from easy, and there are many hurdles left to overcome for this country and its people. But it's a hopeful message that if you buy locally, use locally produced services and products produced "locally", you create a viable economic cycle that enriches everybody. You may not have $40 microwaves produced someplace else on the other side of the world, but instead you get a quality product produced by your neighbour, that doesn't require the expense and waste of trans-global shipment. Then, the makers of cheap microwaves will be forced to pay their workers more in order to create a local/national market for their products, rather than using slave labour and shipping the products overseas to the "first world".Okay, I'm off my soap box. Well done movie with real emotion and appeal.