Mister Brooks I can't believe I just found out about this doc now, but I'm sure Michael Ruppert wouldn't be surprised. Compelling not just for the information, theme and messages, but also for time spent with a complex, highly intelligent, interesting, troubled man who has refused to abandon his cause, his integrity, and his drive to get the information he has in his head out to the world in order to wake us up, against all the forces that would rather this information not get out and those who would just rather not hear it. He's been right before, and while some of his predictions may be slightly off in terms of timeline, or some events, based on the current state of affairs, I somehow think he may not be that far off the mark.

grayzie5 This film is a mixture of dubious links, interesting tidbits, important truths, questionable claims and statements of the obvious.It's an interesting watch, even if you might be sceptical of the broader predictions of Ruppert's, and I certainly am. He seems to sway from interesting observation to a need to tie them all together into one centralised conspiracy. I'm not sure it's quite as simple as he paints it. Nevertheless I enjoyed the film.But I gave this film a 3 out of 10 anyway, because the style of this documentary is a complete rip of Errol Morris. Not influenced by. Not a nod to. A direct copy of the unique style of Morris, down to the music, the late cuts...everything.But Morris' films aren't just interesting for their style. They're interesting because he chooses fascinatingly nuanced and complex personalities who speak honestly about their subject matter.Ruppert just sounds like a guy who's a little too convinced he has it all figured out, and what's everyone to seek guidance from him as to what we should do next.

Roland E. Zwick Ever get the feeling that the world is spinning out of control? That human civilization is hanging by the slenderest of slender threads? That we're all teetering on the brink of a very steep precipice? (Feel free to insert your own doom-and-gloom metaphor here, if you'd like).Well, if so, you may just want to go hide under your covers or jump into a hole and pull it in after you (or at least make yourself a good, stiff drink) after you've seen "Collapse," as starkly pessimistic a look at humanity's future as you could ever hope – or not hope – to see. If nothing else, this film could do wonders for Prozac sales.It takes awhile to even figure out what "Collapse" is really all about. That's partly because the subject of Chris Smith's documentary, Michael Ruppert – investigative journalist, author, lecturer, self-taught energy expert, corporate whistleblower and overall Voice of Doom - is so freewheeling and free-ranging in the extended rant he delivers for the camera that we often have trouble tying all the loose ends together into a coherent whole. But danged if his "crazy," "conspiracy-theory" view of how the world actually works doesn't begin to make sense and to take some sort of root in our psyche – leaving us both depressed and scared out of our collective wits by film's end.Ruppert lays the blame for most of the world's ills directly at the feet of Big Oil, or, more accurately, on our insane dependence on a substance that is part of virtually every product we use in our daily lives and that, ironically, is even necessary for so-called "green" technologies to function. This, of course, has led to a great deal of corporate and governmental corruption which Ruppert outlines for us in graphic detail – not to mention all the wars fought over it.But Ruppert's tirade has only just begun. He explains in detail the derivatives-based cause of the recent worldwide financial collapse and shows how the entire global economy is little more than a massive, ultimately unsustainable "pyramid scheme" that is doomed to collapse of its own weight, sooner rather than later, bringing all of us down with it.And if that isn't white-knuckle-inducing enough for you, Ruppert then predicts the end of a paradigm, comparable to the one, he says, that destroyed the dinosaurs, only this collapse will be economic and social in nature and strictly one of mankind's own making. Much of this he blames on the huge spike in human population beginning with the Industrial Revolution and the concomitant rise in our use of fossil fuels (thus the tie-in to his earlier rant). And as the earth's finite resources, particularly oil, begin to peter out, the end will come for our modern, technology-driven civilization.He predicts that the FDIC and the Federal Reserve will inevitably become insolvent, which will lead to worldwide chaos and the destruction of whole societies. This movie is entitled "Collapse" for a reason, and Ruppert pulls no punches in laying out his darkly foreboding – nay, apocalyptic - view of what we face as a species, which is the complete collapse of civilization as we know it. Indeed, towards the end, he goes so far as to describe this as nothing less than the "extinction event" of human society.His sense of resentment and frustration is palpable as he chronicles how, like a modern-day Cassandra, he foresaw the current economic crisis years before it happened but was not only totally ignored by those with the power and the purse-strings to do something about it but derided as a "conspiracy theorist" for his efforts at spreading the news. The proof is in the pudding, he would argue, so he feels no need to debate his point-of-view anymore. His eyes well-up with tears as he thinks about where we're all headed, and he consoles himself with trying to enjoy the little things in life - composing and playing songs, taking walks on the beach with his dog, etc. - as the world comes crashing down around him.He does provide some "survival tips" towards the end, mainly centered on finding one's own piece of arable land and cultivating it with the help of a local community of likeminded survivors. Somehow that's small comfort to those of us who wouldn't know a turnip from a tulip. (For a pop culture reference point, the picture of the world he creates is a bit like the one in "The Walking Dead," only minus the zombies).The only real solution, according to Ruppert, is to ride out the coming holocaust as best one can, then go about the business of rebuilding civilization from the ground up.And on that happy note…have a nice day!

bob_meg Chris Smith's "Collapse" is a strange documentary, but an objective one.There's much in Michael Ruppert's views that are worth being concerned about. It's not like he pulled the information from his hind end...much of it has been documented ad nauseum in different mediums.It's to Smith's credit that he did not try to make Ruppert seem more credible than he is. In fact, there are times when he seems to go to great lengths to demonstrate how emotionally unstable his subject appears to be. It's obvious Ruppert carries around a lot of baggage that has resulted in a hyper-paranoid, overly-alarmist sensibility. He talks about being the type who "builds the lifeboats" in a Titanic scenario --- exactly what lifeboats has he built? I just see him standing on the bridge, waving like a maniac.Information is only as good as its source and Ruppert is damaged goods: he's twitchy, chain-smokes incessantly, alternates between defensive and ranting responses, refuses to answer questions that challenge his "credentials" (shaky, at best), advocates survivalist measures, and weeps openly into the camera.Look, I'm not saying anything Ruppert believes will NOT come to pass. My problem is that he comes across as such a fractured emotional basket case that it's hard if not impossible to take him seriously unless he's telling you what you want to hear in the first place.If he was credible, he'd probably be dead by now. But if the CIA doesn't take him seriously, should we? This doc has been compared favorably to Erroll Morris' "The Fog of War" --- unfortunately, McNamara is a believable source, Ruppert is not, though I have no doubt that he wishes he was with all his heart.