Fast, Cheap & Out of Control

Released 1997
Stars Dave Hoover, George Mendonca, Ray Mendez, Rodney Brooks
Directed by Errol Morris

The basic framework for Fast, Cheap & Out of Control has Morris interviewing four men with unique, but not terribly interesting, professions. Dave Hoover is a wild animal trainer who works with lions and tigers in the circus ring. George Mendonca is the topiary gardener (the person who sculpts hedges into lifelike shapes) for Green Animals' Gardens. Ray Mendez is a mole-rat specialist (mole-rats are hairless mammals that live in insect-like colonies). And Rodney Brooks is a robot scientist who works in an artificial intelligence lab at M.I.T. All four of these individuals are among the best in their respective fields, and it's their passion for their jobs, rather than anything especially startling or hypnotic about the work itself, that piques our interest.

Contrast is a critical element. Hoover, with his wild animals and his stories about serial film star Clyde Beatty, belongs to a business (the circus) that is losing out to the glitz of modern-day entertainment. Likewise, Mendonca is one of the last of a dying breed. On the other hand, Mendez, with his observations about how the survival instincts of mole-rats exceed those of humans, and Brooks, who postulates that robots may ultimately outlive their creators, are men whose skill and knowledge place them on the road to the future. Shaped by an ever-changing cultural and technical climate, jobs, like people, evolve. By telling all four stories, Morris gives us a sense of what will be lost and what may be gained as time moves on. Fast, Cheap & Out of Control functions as a requiem for the past and a nod to the future.

Summary by James Berardinelli

Each of the stories is interesting in its own right, and the overall movie combines them to form a reverie about mankind and life itself. I found Rodney Brooks, the MIT AI scientist, the most fascinating. The robotic insects were amazing, but I didn't expect someone who was concerned with the physical abilities of lifeforms to have such philosophical insights into life. I shouldn't have been surprised, though, when I saw his field is both robotics and artificial intelligence. In order to create their own silicon-based lifeforms, he and his team have had to learn about the motivations of carbon-based beings as well as their physical movements. Their marriage of engineering, computer programming, and philosophy would be a dream job for me. Ray Mendez also has interesting insights into life with his observations about the naked mole rat society and how it compares to our own. On the other hand, it's obvious that the other two professions are heading toward extinction. Topiary gardening will be around for a while, but hopefully the lion taming won't. I found Dave Hoover fun to listen to, but everything about his profession is cruel. Director Errol Morris used him to show man's need to control and dominate, and I won't be sorry when the circuses stop using exotic animals.

In my opinion, Morris' film is mostly successful. It's an arthouse documentary, and he does a wonderful job of overlapping dialogue from one person onto another to connect them all to create a meditation on life. He missteps with his intercutting of the circus and Clyde Beatty's B-movie, however. The messages are not subtle, and he overuses them. I would have preferred more time with his four interesting subjects. --Bill Alward, September 18, 2003

It's amazing how one film can warrant such diverse audience opinion about "what it all means". That which I took away from this movie is a concept of God's existence that is nothing short of genius. I'm not saying that this is the director's intention...it's only what I took from it. Four Gods absorbed completely and differently in their four worlds:

1. Artistic God - the gardener - the God who spends his days creating the world for man to live in. "This is my world. I don't care how you live in it, but don't mess it up." Because man has freewill, God is uninvolved in man's evolution.

2. The Bully God - the lion tamer - the God who rules the world with discipline. "This is my world. Do as I say and nobody gets hurt." God won't let man evolve out of fear of losing physical superiority.

3. The Control Freak God - the mole rat scientist - the God who controls man's life. "This is my world. Live in it, but I will observe, limit, and dictate what you do." God won't let man evolve out of fear of losing mental superiority.

4. The Free Thinking God - the robotics engineer - the God who aids and improves man's life with only one commandment/program...respect. "This is our world. We share it. Live in it as you please. I am not expecting you to be perfect. All I am asking for is that you treat each other with mutual respect." Together, we evolve into our creation.

This is the God which I prefer.

Cu-Top (coppertop@rocketmail.com)
Los Angeles