Showing @ Filmhouse, Edinburgh until Mon 21 May – run ended

Ross Ashcroft / UK / 2012 / 97 min

As the late, great American comedian and actor, George Carlin once put it: ‘The planet is fine. The people are fucked.’ And Ross Ashcroft’s début film and timely documentary, Four Horsemen, has proven just how prophetic those words were. Through impressive graphics, historical facts and interviews with some of the world’s leading figures in economics, journalism, banking and politics, this documentary paints a clear picture of the world as it is now, and presents ideas on how we can change it for the better.

Compiled of contributions from leading and experienced public figures in a number of industries, naturally including Noam Chomsky and 22 other key thinkers, Four Horsemen reveals a host of difficult truths, about the state of the world financial system, the realities of debt, the hypocrisy of lenders, the unfairness of the economic system and the duality of the human condition. Featuring impressive graphics, somewhat worrying monetary figures concerning the state of the US financial market and a number of quotes from thinkers including Albert Camus and Chuck Palahniuk’s Tyler Durden, Four Horsemen is as stimulating as it is philosophical.

But what makes it so different from documentaries of a similar nature is that it refuses to vilify one person or group, and instead focuses on the problems of the current financial system before offering some answers to the world’s ongoing issues with money, hierarchy and corporations. Unique, enlightening and sometimes depressing, the documentary’s complicated subject matter is explained very simply, though at times it suffers due to the weight of the actual content. Thorough and challenging, Four Horsemen makes matters of the economy easy to understand, whilst being a refreshing and entertaining film that aims to educate and inform without preaching, and succeeds beautifully.