Fast, Cheap & Out of Control

Errol Morris places four men side by side and draws no connection between them: Dave Hoover, a wild animal tamer; George Mendonça, a topiary gardener working in a garden in Rhode Island; Ray Mendez, an expert on naked mole-rats; and Rodney Brooks, a scientist building robots at MIT. As the edit keeps crossing the four, a shared question emerges: why does a person try to control something, and when does that thing pass out of their hands. Brooks's idea in the title, that small, cheap, out-of-control robots would serve planetary exploration better than one large machine, fits the other three stories as well. Morris uses the device he invented here, the Interrotron, which lets the subject look into the camera and into the interviewer's eyes at once. The effect is that everyone appears to be speaking directly to the viewer. Rotten Tomatoes has it at ninety-one per cent from thirty-three reviews. Who it is for: viewers who like unconventional documentary form and portraits of obsessives. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a clear subject, since the film heads in four directions on purpose.