Crude, Joe Berlinger's new documentary, takes an unsparing look at the kind of corporate policy that leads to environmental calamity. In 1993, 30,000 residents of the Amazonian rain forests of Ecuador filed a class-action suit against Texaco. The suit, inherited by Chevron after a 2001 merger, alleged that decades of ruthless oil drilling had poisoned the ancestral territory of the Cofán nation, rendering the region uninhabitable and causing an epidemic of cancer. Berlinger charts the thorny years of litigation led by two heroic lawyers. It's a David-and-Goliath tale, full of anger and disturbing accusation, but it's also inspiring. B+
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