It was only a matter of time before Morgan Spurlock made a documentary like Pom Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold. This, after all, is the affable aficionado of giving great sales pitches without ever really providing the goods to back it up. The cheeky director is the perfect candidate to explore the phenomenon of product placement. Filming numerous meetings with huge corporations, Spurlock is completely transparent in both his method and his madness: he will wear sponsored clothing, plug products and endorse any company that pays, using their fees to fund the entire film.
It’s a fantastic premise, and Spurlock’s sheer cheek in hawking his film out to the highest bidder is hilarious. But when his opening negotiating schtick runs out of fuel, the director seems to be unsure of what to do next. Having spoken constantly about how products will be used in “the movie”, it soon becomes clear that Spurlock has no idea what “the movie” is. Unlike his similarly hook-driven Super Size Me, which delved into wider issues of obesity, previous lawsuits and socio-economic factors, he doesn’t have any definite notion as to how to proceed.
Which isn’t necessarily a terrible thing. Declaring himself a man of the people, Spurlock is open about the fact that he, like consumers in general, is trying to figure out just how prevalent and problematic product placement is. And he’s not the only one, as brilliant soundbites from Noam Chomsky, Quentin Tarantino and Ralph Nader prove. Sadly, laughs come at the cost of insight. Spurlock skims over the potentially fascinating intricacies of the heavy contracts imposed on him by co-operating companies. Nor does he address the extent to which the meetings may have been edited to show sponsors in a positive light.
Entertaining, enjoyable, but hardly enlightening, if I learned only one thing from Pom Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold – and I think I did only learn one thing – it’s that Morgan Spurlock is lucky that movie titles aren’t subject to the Trades Description Act.