At one point in the documentary The End Of Poverty?, a former government operative confides that his job used to entail visiting leaders in Third World countries and telling them they could either become fabulously wealthy by playing ball with American political and economic interests, or be murdered by economic hitmen. It should be a moment of incredible drama, but it’s conveyed in such a dry, academic fashion that it barely registers. Nor does anything else. The End Of Poverty? boasts a message that’s simultaneously dispiriting and inspiring: Colonialism and capitalism are destroying the world and terrorizing indigenous cultures, but it would take a mere $20 billion to cut global poverty in half—a suspicious, preposterously paltry sum that casts many of the film’s other assertions in doubt.
Keep scrolling for more great stories from A.V. Club.