:
Tommy Herman,
Kaleil Isaza Tuzman,
Tom Herman,
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:
Chris Hegedus,
Jehane Noujaim,
Chris Hegedus,
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: 
: Live/Artisan
: Documentary, Political & Social Issues
: 103 min.
: English
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This title is currently out of print.
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Two men discover the perils of going into business with their friends as they observe the rise and fall of their Internet firm over the course of its first (and only) year in this documentary produced by D.A. Pennebaker. Tom Herman and Kaleil Isaza Tuzman first met while they were in high school; they studied business together in college, and they remained close friends after graduating, often bandying about the idea of working together. In May of 1999, they made their dream a reality and opened Govworks.com, a Web-based firm devoted to helping people deal more efficiently with local governments (it began as a notion to pay parking tickets online). Govworks.com soon exploded, going from a one-room office with a tiny staff to over 200 employees and a bankroll of $50 million. However, like many other Internet firms of their day, Govworks.com was not destined to succeed, and by January of 2001, the company had let nearly all its employees go, and was eventually swallowed up by a larger firm, with Herman and Isaza Tuzman having little to show for their efforts. Just as significantly, after their initial burst of enthusiasm, Herman and Isaza Tuzman found themselves locking horns, as they displayed their naivete about the nuts and bolts of making an Internet start-up work; Herman's gentle nature clashed with Isaza Tuzman's all-business approach, and eventually Herman was forced out of the company he had helped to found by his longtime friend. Directors Jehane Noujaim and Chris Hegedus shot Startup.com using digital video equipment, and to keep the film as timely as possible, screened a digital copy of the film, which went through its final edit only days before its premiere at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
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| Lame
by ironically
November 30, 2004 - 1:48 AM PST
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5 out of 8 members found this review helpful
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Having experienced the dot-com boom and bust first-hand, I'm amazed that a documentary could present such an inaccurate picture of what it was like to work at one of those absurd companies. This documentary embodies the "greed is good" philosophy, lionizing the two partners for their ability to scoop up millions of dollars and flush them down the drain.
By focusing so narrowly on these two really unpleasant people, this video skips over the amazing events and the harrowing stress that so many people experienced. The obvious admiration these filmmakers have for the two greed-heads is really quite annoying and reaches its repulsive apex as it quickly looks away from the neglect that one of the two jerks inflicts upon his daughter. The depiction of an innocent child's pain as some kind of heroic sacrifice only emphasizes the messed-up value system emobodied by this awful video.
The title is really a misnomer, because this documentary is only marginally about a dot-com. Witness the incredibly short shrift given to such events as the initial launch of the web site, which to anybody in the trenches is one of the most critical events in a dot-com's lifecycle. Don't expect to see clips from a business development meeting, a code review, or people scrambling to resuscitate a crashed server. Instead, you'll get moronic soap-opera dialog at a gym.
If you are expecting to get an insightful glimpse into the world of the internet boom and bust, don't bother with this one. If you want to see the product of youth-obsessed money worship, this is the one for you. |
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GreenCine Member Rating
(Average 6.23)
116 Votes
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