Plot
In this David and Goliath story for the 21st century, a group of proud Scottish homeowners take on celebrity tycoon Donald Trump as he buys up one of Scotland's last wilderness areas to build a golf resort.
Release Year: 2011
Rating: 8.4/10 (243 voted)
Director:
Anthony Baxter
Stars: Michael Forbes, Donald Trump
Storyline In this David and Goliath story for the 21st century, a group of proud Scottish homeowners take on celebrity tycoon Donald Trump as he buys up one of Scotland's last wilderness areas to build a golf resort.
Cast: Michael Forbes
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Himself
Donald Trump
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Himself
A Brilliantly Made, Emotionally Potent Documentary
Rating: 10/10
You've Been Trumped is a movie that, hopefully will go down in history
as one of the great environmental documentaries, alongside Al Gore's An
Inconvenient Truth. manages to not only be an upsetting, interesting,
and engaging documentary, made by a first time film maker, but a
brilliantly made film as well. Not to mention the fact that it is often
laugh out loud funny and features a sound track to rival many Tarantino
films.
The greatest accomplishment of You've Been Trumped, however, is that it
is pretty much guaranteed to make you hate Donald Trump even more than
you already do. It paints him as more than just a profiteering
industrialist looking to make a quick buck at the expense of the
environment. It also manages to include moments of his blatantly lying
to reporters, as well as a subtle moment of him totally objectifying
women for the sake of money. It should say something that this little
documentary that has only been to a couple film festivals so far has
provoked a huge reaction from Trump himself. He has made statements
calling the film makers frauds and refusing to see the film because its
"boring".
The basic story of You've Been Trumped is that Donald Trump set out to
build "The World's Greatest Golf Course" and picked out as the location
a Scottish beach. The thing is that this particular beach has sand
dunes that are essentially the British equivalent of a National
Monument. Despite this, he was given government approval to destroy the
dunes. At this point, he thought he had won. The British and Scottish
governments had given him carte blanche. The one thing he hadn't
counted on was the resistance of a few local farmers, who's families
had owned their land for generations, against the development. The film
charts their fight to protect their land from essentially being
bulldozed by Trump.
The film is brilliant not just for the way it charts the destruction
that Trump does, both against the environment, and against the people,
but because it is so well made. For one thing it looks gorgeous. Of
course part of that comes naturally when you are shooting in some of
the most gorgeous country on earth, but considering the budget and
experience of those involved, its amazing how good You've Been Trumped
looks. Even other than in the cinematography, the film is very well
made. Even during the slower moments in terms of the plot, the film
always feels interesting thanks to the great direction and editing.
You've Been Trumped is one of the best documentaries in years, and
hopefully it will go on to win further recognition. It has only been to
a few film festivals so far, but it has already won a few awards. It is
emotionally potent, as well as being politically strong enough to
inspire people to action. It is put together better than documentaries
with twice the budget. Hopefully it will go on to have a great run and
make enough of a splash to do some serious damage to Trump's Monopoly.
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