“The Big Uneasy,” a damning new look at the onset and effects of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, is agitating by design.
We’re supposed to feel anxious when we watch it — not just “uneasy” about the structural and human flaws that led to one of the nation’s costliest disasters, but downright sick about it.
As one distraught expert after another proclaims, it shouldn’t have happened. Not the hurricane, which behaved as hurricanes do: i.e., without our permission or input.
No, explains Harry Shearer and other outraged talking heads in “The Big Uneasy”: It’s the flood that should have been prevented.
“This was not a natural disaster,” declares civil engineer Robert Bea. “In fact, this was a very unnatural disaster. This was a disaster caused by people.”
According to Shearer’s film, first among those responsible is the Army Corps of Engineers, which built the flood- protection system that failed to protect the city.
The Corps takes a beating — for designing the levees badly, for building them anyway, for refusing to take responsibility for their failure and for stonewalling outside investigators with the gall to criticize them.
Tucked into the running time are a few attempts at humor, not surprising for the writer-actor-musician-comedian best known for Spinal Tap.
Some of the jokiness doesn’t fly. I could have done without John Goodman’s flashy intro to “Ask a New Orleanean,” although the segments themselves — basically, bull sessions with residents who debunk the loonier myths of Katrina — add a chatty lightness to a film otherwise packed with hard scientific facts.
Shearer himself materializes now and then, in a snappy white fedora and several days’ growth, to offer perspective and caustic blips of anger. “The Big Uneasy” is his impassioned plug for honesty and common sense — and sound engineering — in the lingering aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Shearer at screening
Harry Shearer — humorist, actor, the voice of Smithers on TV’s “The Simpsons” and more — will speak at 7 at tonight’s screening. $12-$15, Denver FilmCenter/Colfax, 2510 E. Colfax Ave.
