Revenge of the Electric Car
DIRECTED BY CHRIS PAINE
In 2006, Chris Paine made his directorial debut with popular docu-mystery Who Killed the Electric Car?, which chronicled the promising rise and unceremonious fall of GM’s pioneering EV1. A traditional talking head advocacy piece, it lamented the EV1’s premature demise, and ultimately pointed the finger at a combination of uninformed consumers, spineless regulators, and the entrenched conspiratorial bedfellows of auto manufacturers and oil producers.
Paine’s follow-up is dubbed Revenge of the Electric Car, but “stuttering revival” is a more apt characterization, even if it strays from the titular conventions of cinematic sequels. The so-called Revenge updates audiences on post-2007 developments, which have seen car companies renew their interests in eco-friendly electrics, but the film depicts this recovery as a tentative process beset by economic instability rather than as a triumphant retaliatory resurgence.
Indeed, the global recession of 2008 appears to have been a stumbling block for both the automotive industry and Paine alike, delaying progress in the production of mainstream electric vehicles and seemingly putting Revenge behind schedule. One suspects Paine had hoped to document the early stages of widespread electric adoption, but his film has instead been hobbled by a relative lack of decisive development. In short, Revenge is considerably less insightful than its predecessor, observing that electric cars are back on the agenda, but offering little analysis as to what’s changed, nor concrete projections for consumer reception.
Perhaps wary of these shortcomings, Paine swaps information density for dramatic intensity, borrowing a technique or two from reality TV. He profiles three contrasting auto industry personalities and plays up the precarious states of their various ventures amid the prolonged economic downturn. Cigar chompin’ GM bigwig Bob Lutz is a reformed gas-guzzling traditionalist, hoping to save the floundering Detroit giant and launch Chevy’s eco-friendly Volt. Dot-com boomer Elon Musk risks his fortune founding Tesla Motors, an upstart, all-electric Silicon Valley startup. Carlos Ghosn, Nissan’s calculating French-born CEO, stakes the company’s future on the affordable plug-in LEAF. And in case audiences don’t relate to millionaire executive types, an underdog electric conversion hobbyist named Greg “Gadget” Abbott also appears, struggling to rebuild after a workshop fire.
Will Lutz and GM land a government bailout? Will Musk successfully take Tesla public? Will Nissan’s electric LEAF rake in the green? And will the luckless DIY-er catch a break? With respect to the first three teases, news-savvy viewers won’t be taken in by Paine’s manufactured suspense, but at least the latter story is exclusive to the shiny, shallow, serviceable Revenge.