Warren Buffett famously said that it takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. Maybe the typical length of a documentary on an online streaming platform should be revised to two hours or more. Some of the sharpest criticisms of companies nowadays take the form of movies, and thanks to the spread of swipe-to-play apps and our couch times in the covid pandemic, their audiences are swelling up. Since these must compete for viewership with the fictional fare on the ‘Infinite Scrolls’ menu, they need to be riveting. And the best ones really are. The person who has received the most recent praise has been Downfall: The Case Against Boeing, which takes the plane-maker to task for the 737 MAX scandal after seemingly similar crashes in 2018 and 2019. The software was at fault, not some pilot error. This Netflix film traces the tragedies following Boeing’s 1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas for an obsession with shareholder value that has them rest firmly on security slippage in the pursuit of profit. As the story goes, Boeing’s need to bump up the Airbus 320 Neo’s fuel-efficiency prompted it to retrofit the new engines onto the old design, but stop at certain angles of inclination after take-off. An automatic nose-dipper was installed covertly to cover the resulting risk of , Now that pilots have finally been trained for it, the plane was recently deemed re-airworthy by regulators, but the film leaves an impression that wiping out Boeing couldn’t be easier.
Cinema works best when it moves us and commercial intrigue stories have been getting it on a regular basis. Had Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes not accused her ex-business partner Ramesh Balwani of sexual abuse, the fraudulent blood-testing innovation her company came up with would not have gotten much attention in India. but Inventor: Out for Blood In Silicon Valley (2019) has gathered audiences for the enthusiasm with which that startup has propelled itself to the world as an innovator eager to celebrate the wonders of technology, while for us it Leaving room to wonder whether Holmes himself was unaware of the failure of the idea. Perhaps the most compelling are non-fiction films that depict the impact business practices have on society. Has been one of the most popular in this category social dilemma (2020), which can make even the most demure of us feel manipulated by social media and nervous about our privacy. The iconic knock by this documentary was mainly attributed to Facebook, which called it “perverted,” although its head Mark Zuckerberg was arguably better than it. Social Networks (2010), a film that was talked about inside job (2010), About the West great Recession, Even when the role of a business is indirect, a compelling narrative on screen can hurt it. Tinder bans Simon Leviev from its dating platform tinder thug (2022), about how he hunted women, but the film’s title attached its brand-name to his thugs.
Not that business in India has been less scandalous. It just so happens that the style is relatively new. local initiation chain Bad Boy Billionaires: India (2020) traces the rise and fall of tycoons like Nirav Modi, Vijay Mallya, Ramalinga Raju and Subrata Roy. With an enthusiastic audience online, we can expect much more. Unlike dry factual reports, these presentations partly draw on emotion, which often assures their deep impression on people’s minds. The success of this style should be important to everyone in the business. They should keep an eye on themselves, lest they fall on our watch list for all the wrong reasons.
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