Too much of everything

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

While the movie started good it quickly seemed to push its slanted view of the truths surrounding Katrina. The language was very, very offensive and I almost quit viewing because subtitles were needed due to poor sound quality. The movie covered the Navy Base as an outpost intended to keep the natives out. Actually the USS Totuga was there 2 hours after Louisiana Governor Blanco "finally" asked for help about 5 days after Katrina. A lot of the people in the movie seemed to be asking for the government to take care of them although they didn't want to leave New Orleans before the storm. The Navy actually built kennels for hundreds of dogs and housed locals that were homeless and gave them thousands of meals. Coincidently this same ship helped the Japanese after their tsunami. I found it interesting that the subjects spent so much time complaining about the national government and President Bush, but work seemed like an afterthought.

A must-see documentary for anyone interested in the suppression of the poor in the United States. What went down in New Orleans was something even the corporate media had a hard time hiding. FOX News was reporting on Hurricane Katrina and saying the place looked like the 3rd world. The images were startling on the US news, but there was still the undertones of profit. "How will this affect gasoline prices?" Julie Chen asks on the CBS morning show after showing footage of all the homeless blacks.This is the story as told by the people themselves, not by Anderson Cooper or anyone else. This is how the story should be told because these are the people who lived with it. It's not even a story anyone in uniform could tell because they were part of the problem in New Orleans.One scene of this documentary allows the locals to narrate how they tried to go to a local Navy base in New Orleans which had been evacuated before the storm. It was empty and it had housing for people which wasn't being used. The National Guard who were protecting the building cocked and loaded M-16s and pointed them at the crowd. Nope, these aren't the stories you hear about on CNN.You won't hear the story about a man in prison for a misdemeanour before the storm hit either. The television was taken away by the guards before footage of the storm was on the air, when the prisoners finally heard that there was a hurricane outside, they were denied food and most of the guards left.This is a very good documentary, and an important one because it shows the failings of government. The government doesn't fail everyone, it takes very good care of the rich and businesses, which recovered quicker than anyone else in New Orleans. The government failures are biased towards the poor and visual minorities and this doc. pretty much confirms that thesis.Four years on and not much has changed in the 9th ward, but the casino is open and the tourism department is showing a flashy video urging people to come to New Orleans. The poor black people aren't around any more, except when they're working for minimum wage. The rest have been displaced from the city where they lived but no longer trust to live in anymore.Katrina is just one of the legacies of the Bush administration and perhaps a strong indication that the US is a country whose power is in decline. What can you possibly say about a country which won't even help its weakest and most destitute citizen? It sucks.

This is very dramatic and satisfying film on a character level in a way that When The Levees Broke, as good as it was, was not. I always prefer documentaries that are character driven. "Water" gives you a window into a world that usually is hermetically sealed from the rest of society, and humanizes the "ghetto" in a way I've never seen before. You really get to know the couple and you sympathize with them, even though they are far from what most people would call upstanding members of society. The world they come from is usually overlooked or glamorized in gangster films, but because Kim (the wife) did the filming of her community during the hurricane, it is authentic. It really is a testament to how technology (in this case, the amateur video camera) has democratized society and what is possible when the voiceless find their voice. It's the antidote to "Hustle and Flow" in EVERY way. When Kim raps, it comes at a devastating moment in the film and she has your full attention, and you identify with every word, and you totally understand why she is the way she is, and why rap can be such powerful poetry. It's not just some soundtrack. Musically, the film is great on many levels -- the score, and the other songs chosen.

Wow. This is absolutely the best documentary I've seen in years, and hands-down most engaging and relevant piece I have seen on the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe. It is outstanding: funny, tragic, sharp and smart. Kim simply steals the show, even she's videotaping and you can't even see her, you can only hear her voice from behind the camera. The film is centered around Kim's footage of the hurricane and her life. She is a gifted storyteller and also quite a good rapper. When I saw the film, the theater burst out into spontaneous applause after she performed one of her songs in its entirety on film; in the Q&A, the directors' said that had happened every single time it's been screened.