The Coca-Cola Case (2009) User Reviews

A Look at the Coke Controversy

[gavin6942 · 7/10 · 16 July 2013]

Two lawyers and labor rights' activists, Daniel Kovalik of the United Steel Workers of America and Terry Collingsworth of the International Rights Advocates, and their partner Ray Rogers of Corporate Campaign firmly believe that multinational corporations should be held accountable for the shabby practices of their business associates throughout the world. To lead their battle, they resort to a law dating back to the origin of the American Constitution -- The Alien Tort Claims Act -- which allows foreigners to file suit in the U.S. against Americans who violate international laws. The film tells the story of their fight against one of America's stellar icons: the Coca-Cola company.

If you learn nothing else from this, learn one lesson: if you want to take on the government or big business, do not use Ernesto Guevara as a role model (or at least keep quiet about it). This is the same thing to learn in any protest or political movement -- if you appear to represent an extreme position, you will not be respected, whether or not you are right.

I love the pro-Coke protest, with posters saying things like "I only sleep with Coke drinkers" and "Screw Human Rights". Such a reverse from what I am used to in Madison (where they would probably prefer to remove soda and any bottling altogether).

Coca-Cola is Anti-union in America too

[oddwayne · 8/10 · 4 June 2012]

The film is valuable in calling some attention to the truth of corporate-America: there is too much incentive for corruption, lying is part of the culture, and murder is just another tool for profits.

Coca-cola has been a long-standing member of ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council). ALEC Republicans push legislation commonly known as "Right to Work", a circumlocution for ANTI-WORKER, UNION BUSTING, and actually means "Right to Work for Way Less", or "Right to Cut Your Own Throat". ALEC Republicans are also involved in environmental destruction legislation, education destruction legislation, and anything else that converts the value of humane existence into Profits for the American Aristocracy.

It was great that the film-makers take viewers from the streets and factories of Columbia to the board meetings of Coca-Cola in the U.S. They present the cause of the victims, both living and deceased, the workers still struggling for their rights and their lives. Americans should open their eyes to what their global corporations are involved in, domestically and abroad.

A clunky campaign film following an equally clunky anti corporate campaign...

[cgyford · 2/10 · 17 June 2010]

Documentary filmmakers Carmen Garcia and German Gutierrez ("Variations on a Familiar Theme") reteam for this somewhat clunky campaign film, following attempts to hold the multinational soft drinks corporation accountable for the murder of union workers at its bottling plants in Columbia, which occasionally shows up on the festival circuit.

Lawyers and union rights activists Daniel Kovalik of the United Steel Workers of America and Terry Collingsworth of the International Rights Advocates engage Ray Rogers of Corporate Campaign to run the "Killer Coke" campaign to support their attempts to prosecute Coca-Cola under The Alien Tort Claims Act for violation of international law.

The bumbling antics of Daniel Kovalik form the heart of the film with equally bumbling support from disillusioned hippy Ray Rogers while the far more credible seeming Terry Collingsworth wisely chooses to remain on the sidelines of a painfully misguided campaign which far from the wishes of the victims' families seems solely focused on getting the corporation to settle.

The filmmakers are thus given little to work with and chose to do even less with what they have been given and the film quickly descends into staged phone calls and hysterical finger pointing from the Laurel and Hardy-style leads which merely serves to highlight how not to run a anti-corporate campaign and how not to make a campaign film.

"The day we settle, they'll kill us."

must all our products be slave made? aren't we past this?

[grewelgrewel · 10/10 · 5 July 2010]

well it seems the common human theme is to do what you can get away with this movie is basically a documentary about how corporations go into foreign countries and take advantage of the local population by paying them as low as possible, keeping them in horrendous conditions, and doing everything they can including collaborating with murderers to keep the slaves from organizing and getting their fare slice of the coca cola pie.

coca cola, along with many other corporations such as walmart are run in a dictatorship type business model which allows the CEO's and other top level people to get ridiculous amounts of money while the lower employees and foreign slaves gotta work for bread crumbs, not because the company cant afford to be good people and pay them fair, but because they can get away with treating them like slaves, and have no doubt it is slavery and a textbook definition of it.

this documentary was decently put together, could have been put together more professionally but it got its point across, and was very entertaining and interesting most north Americans except for me and a handful of others in the entire land, don't really care how much death and slavery went into the products that are bought, why slavery has grown so much lately, i ain't asking to pay them USA or Canadian minimum wage but at least have some decency and pay them what they deserve, working 6am-9pm every day for $1 per hour is wrong, and the whole concept of it is unamerican and uncanadian, its something Hitler or Kim Jong Il would do

Contains No Fact

[digdog-785-717538 · 3/10 · 15 July 2010]

Riding on the wave of Michael Moore and Supersize me, yet another filmmaker trying to cash in by attacking the corporate world; Nothing wrong in that perse, but the slow, boring and frankly pointless The Coca Cola Case contains no fact, proof, or even believable accusation, just two hours of random nobodies ranting on how there might be a mystery, but they are totally at a loss at explaining it since, it seems, they have no proof.

So if you fancy watching The Coca Cola Wild Allegations film, this is for you; for everyone else, give this a miss. 3/10 for having barely sufficient camera-work (and a tedious, repeating soundtrack)