Poll Position: Jim's take on Freakonomics (2010)

Last week's poll was to help us choose a documentary to watch. Of the choices given, the vast majority went with the most recognizable title, Freakonomics. The description of this documentary was pretty vague, and I had a pretty hard time knowing exactly what I was getting into. I even resorted to watching the trailer, which I rarely do, just to try and get some idea what this was about. The only answer I found was that it was about "a lot". After watching it, I can't say they were wrong. If you curious as to what this documentary had to say, hit the jump and I'll do my best to explain it.


So the majority of the film is taken up by several different mini-documentaries, all by different people, like Morgan Spurlock who did the film Super Size Me. All of the sub-docs have a similar theme which is basically "cause and effect". What events or factors are truly the cause of the things we see in the real world? Why do people do the things they do? What will incentivize them to act? With this in mind the hosts introduce us to situations of cheating in the competitive world of Sumo wrestling. What the effect a name can or can't have on the life of a child and ultimately their adulthood? What most likely really caused the massive drop in crime in the 90s, and whether or not you can bribe a 9th grader with cash to get better grades.


The topics are definitely varied, true to their word. The problem is that I felt like I was just watch a lot of unrelated episodes instead of an actual whole movie. I know there was an over arching theme, but the topics of discussion were just so incredibly different it can't be helped.

Not even Sumo is immune to the likes of cheating

Ignoring the separation factor, and judging each segment on my enjoyment of each individual, I'd have to say it was a mixed bag of interesting, to kinda boring. For instance, I thought for sure I'd find the piece on Sumo Wrestling to be interesting because I find Japanese culture interesting. Instead, I actually found myself being kinda bored of the whole piece. Instead I found the segment about naming your child, and what lowered the 90s crime rates in America to be more interesting. The final segment about bribing a 9th grader had to be the worst though, and also failed to catch my attention and it all seemed kinda pointless. At least the Sumo cheating segment was also about uncovering the truth about police investigations in Japan and murders being brushed away.

Almost every documentary will have an art style to go with it's graphics and little animations they frequently use. I think one everything that wasn't filmed, was made to look like it was made of paper. It kind of made sense to me since economics conjures up images of math and calculus and statistics in my mind. Still, documentaries that have animated segments often seem to try to use some comedy to break up the serious topics and keep you focused. They did try that a few times here, but I just never found them funny, and it was just more kinda boring stories.

This pie chart shows what they believe the "real" reason the crime rates dropped. Hint: legalizing abortions

Sadly this one didn't win me over quite like I had hoped. It does have a lot to say on a lot of topics, so maybe there is a little something in this for everyone. Some of the little facts are very interesting, but some segments just fall flat. Overall I think a little less than half of this movie was interesting to me. For some reason I found the best segment was the one about the differences between black and white names in our culture. I seem to have varying and always changing opinions of the other segments and I can't really nail down what I thought of them.

If you like documentaries, this is probably one of the more well made ones. It certainly seemed to have a high production value as far as documentaries go. I think different people will find different segments more interesting than others. Everything I've said here is obviously just personal opinion because it's so hard to talk about documentaries. I think if you like documentaries, it's probably still worth checking out, but personally I really only found it to be average at best.