Michael Ruppert is best known for being a whistle blower to CIA smuggling drugs into American during the 80's. More than that controversy, he has a string of devastating observations and a prediction of the coming worldwide collapse. He was an LAPD officer in South Central. He has written books about world problems. In a stark room, director Chris Smith interviews Ruppert as he talks about peak oil, energy, Iraq war, food, mortgage derivatives, fiat currency, and much more.

There are two ways to take this documentary. One can take Ruppert seriously and agree with his diatribe. One can also see him as a conspiracy theorist ranting. I don't think the movie is good enough to do either. I'm not claiming that this guy is crazy or that he's prophetic. His monologue is too wide-ranging to be focused into a cogent argument about one issue. He's also not crazy enough and the doc is not deep enough into his personal life to make case of his mental stability. It exists a little of both and depends on the viewer to make the determination. I can't wait for Oliver Stone to do a movie about him.

This film consists of interviews with one Michael Ruppert, a former cop with the LAPD, specializing in narcotics. Outside of promoting the themes in this movie, Ruppert is best known for his charges of CIA drug dealings in the 1970s.

In this movie Ruppert makes a case for an impending collapse in the world economies, based primarily on oil and gas depletion. You can't dismiss the basic truth that oil is a finite resource and that it drives the world economy. In fact one of the things this movie convinced me of is just how dependent we are on oil and gas--they are used to manufacture almost all of the products the major economies depend on: from plastics, to autos, to food distribution. Oil and gas also create most of the energy used. And of course there is the enormous drain on oil supplies for automobile and truck transportation. The depletion of the world's oil reserves will undoubtedly require major readjustments. The crux of the argument Ruppert makes is just how sudden the transition away from an oil based economy will be. He thinks that it will be in the near-term and result in a dramatic collapse. He does discuss a transition period, which we are clearly in right now. The question is just how short that transition period will be, and what damage will be done before we get through it. How many oil spills will we have to endure?

Ruppert views capitalist economies as giant Ponzi schemes that depend on infinite growth. A point in favor of this argument is the economic crisis that occurred in the fall of 2008. Things are so interconnected now that one does get the feeling that it would not take much for the whole house of cards to collapse.

Ruppert's suggestions for those who subscribe to his views are not terribly consoling. He promotes private gardens. If things get so bad that people are depending on private gardens for survival, then I think people are going to have to sit nearby with shotguns to protect their tomatoes. He thinks that paper money offers no protection-- hyperinflation could result in having to use wheelbarrows of money to buy a loaf of bread, like in Germany in the 1920s. He suggests buying gold, not gold stocks, but actual gold. I can't see that as a hedge--if paper money becomes essentially worthless, is the local grocer going to take a few grains of gold in exchange for food? If Ruppert converts you to his way of seeing the future, then you are left feeling rather helpless and depressed.

In any case, credit this movie for treating serious issues and making you think. That can't be said for very many movies.

All you will hear from this film is everything that you don't want to know. But Michael Ruppert said it anyway. It's easier to not give a damn to everything that he's saying and everything that's happening anywhere. But he has shown that it might not be good idea if you aim to live and not just exist.