Rating: NR | Runtime: 102 minutes
Release Date: June 14th, 2024 (USA)
Studio: Participant / Magnolia Pictures
Director(s): Gabriela Cowperthwaite
Writer(s): Gabriela Cowperthwaite

When you don’t have enough food, money is useless.

It can get frustrating to always hear the words “It can be solved if we’re willing to solve it” at the end of a documentary. How often must we watch and learn about an important issue being detrimental to the sustainability of life itself only to realize the “willingness” on our part as citizens means nothing compared to the unwillingness of government and corporate entities that only care about profits? Apparently, this truth must be endured until the end of time because nothing is changing. If anything, things are actually getting worse.

Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s documentary The Grab, focusing on Nathan Halverson’s investigative journalism on the topic of our world’s latest resource war over food and water, proves as much by revealing how corrupt things are. Wall Street facilitating the international takeover of American land. Foreign money exploiting US states without regulatory barriers to enrich themselves at the expense of the communities they’ve destroyed. Mercenaries like Erik Prince pivoting to private security and consulting in Africa by using military might to displace people from ancestral land so it can be commercially farmed. Russia salivating at the prospect of global warming turning its frozen tundra into untapped fertile soil. We’re heading towards Mad Max water scarcity territory.

It’s all the obvious continuation of everything we’ve seen over the past few decades with through lines drawn to the newfound understanding that food and water is the greatest political tool for government control today. Keep the people full and it doesn’t matter what else you do. Hunger is what starts uprisings. Not necessarily unrest. That’s why China bought American pigs. It’s why Russia invested in cattle and why the Ukraine invasion was less a tyrant’s impulsive act than a calculated dice roll for future power via grain production. Cowperthwaite and Halverson lay it all out. It’s now on us to force our politicians to adjust … if voters still have the ability to do such things anymore. I often wonder if we’re too far gone.

That’s why it’s not therefore on the filmmakers to give us answers. Yes, it’s frustrating to constantly hear the same question over and over again, but that question is quite literally their job. The real nightmare will be when no one is left to ask it. That they do so here with a level of cinematic suspense and drama only makes it more exhilarating to watch. The more enjoyable the experience, the better chance the information sinks in. Maybe the structure plays up the danger a bit (narratively speaking since anyone researching these topics are in real danger regardless of whether they must overtly confront it), but you cannot erase their fear just because it proved unfounded this time.

The Grab is ultimately a companion piece to the larger “Work”—the diversification of it through an additional medium for wider exposure (most notably seen via a text-based epilogue that finishes the stories of people we’ve met briefly without ever going deep enough to realize they deserved such pointed closure). It is a director following a team of investigative journalists, becoming part of said team to document and participate in the process while providing visuals and context for the writing. Pull the threads, follow the money, and report the facts. The rest is up to those listening and willing to take a stand.

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Nate Halverson and Mallory Newman in THE GRAB, a Magnolia Pictures & Participant release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.