Synopsis
"Trouble the Water" takes you inside Hurricane Katrina in a way never before seen on screen. The film opens the day before the storm makes landfall--just blocks away from the French Quarter but far from the New Orleans that most tourists knew. Kimberly Rivers Roberts, an aspiring rap artist, is turning her new video camera on herself and her Ninth Ward neighbors trapped in the city. Weaving an insider's view of Katrina with a mix of verité and in-your-face filmmaking, it is a redemptive tale of self-described street hustlers who become heroes--two unforgettable people who survive the storm and then seize a chance for a new beginning.
Your Movie Library
Cast
- Scott RogersSelf
- George W. BushSelf (archive footage)
- Michael BrownSelf (archive footage)
- Julie Chen MoonvesSelf - Reporter (archive footage) (as Julie Chen)
- Ray NaginSelf (archive footage)
- Brian NoblesSelf
- Wink RiversSelf
- Scott RobertsSelf
- Larry SimsSelf - Resident
- Shepard SmithSelf (voice) (archive sound)
Recommendations
- 100
Salon
If possible, Roberts' movie-within-a-movie is even more amazing than it sounds. She captures a tale of courage, heroism and tragedy more thrilling than any Hollywood spectacle. - 88
Rolling Stone
Lessin and Deal have made Trouble the Water a spellbinder you do not want to miss. - 88
Premiere
A remarkable and disturbing look at the personal stories glossed over by the headlines. - 80
New York Magazine (Vulture)
You can't make this stuff up. You can, however, capture it on film for all time. Trouble the Water is ineradicably moving. - 80
Village Voice
The resilience of the movie's subjects--survivors of street crime and drugs and HIV--irradiates Trouble the Water like sunshine. - 80
Los Angeles Times
A stirring documentary. - 80
The New York Times
They have created an ingeniously fluid narrative structure that, when combined with Ms. Roberts’s visuals, news material and their own original 16-millimeter film footage, ebbs and flows like great drama. - 75
The A.V. Club
Trouble The Water is infuriating in its depiction of helpless Americans getting left behind, and uplifting in the way it shows the Roberts putting their lives together, but it's also frustrating, because it lacks some focus.