MOVIE OF THE WEEK August 21, 2026 – FREEFALL: A RECKONING FOR BOEING

Watching Rory Kennedy’s pressing, powerful documentary Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing — the follow-up to Kennedy’s equally compelling 2022 film Downfall: The Case Against Boeing — it’s impossible not to dwell on two thoughts: First, these days, the act of choosing to step foot on an American-built plane kind of feels like playing a game of Russian Roulette, and second, it’s appalling how blatantly this country continues to prioritize profits over people’s lives.

Both films dig deep into the circumstances behind Boeing crashes with heavy fatalities: Two involving the 737 Max (the first in Indonesia in October 2018 and the second just a few months later in March 2019 in Ethiopia) and one a 787 Dreamliner (in India in June 2025). While Downfall has a heavier focus on investigating and identifying the mechanical and decision-making failures that led to the 737 tragedies, Freefall adds information about the Dreamliner incident and takes a hard look at the fallout of the crashes, particularly what happened to those who chose to speak out against Boeing.

Several whistleblowers are interviewed in the film, but it’s the story of John Barnett — a three-decade Boeing veteran who worked in quality control and documented the company’s resistance to hearing his concerns about the culture and practices at the factory that produced the 787 — that hits the hardest. Listening to Barnett’s own words and those of his colleagues and family members, it feels very clear that the company punished him for his attempts to speak up, undermining his success as an employee and subjecting him to investigations and demotion. He left Boeing in 2017 out of concern for his health, given the ongoing stress, but (spoiler alert!) he ultimately took his own life in 2024, leaving a note that said he couldn’t take it anymore.

Listening to Kennedy’s interviews with other concerned whistleblowers, as well as with angry, grieving family members of crash victims, a simple, singular plea emerges: for someone to take accountability. The interviewees are begging Boeing to acknowledge that the corporate mandate to maximize shareholder profit is coming at a massive, untenable cost. As one interviewee says, “At most companies, the stakes aren’t people’s lives. But at Boeing, they are.” As long as that’s the case, there’s nothing the company’s leaders can say that will justify a single corner being cut. — Betsy Bozdech

Team #MOTW’s comments:

Nell Minow: One of the most chilling moments you will witness this year is this film’s footage of a Senate hearing with the CEO of Boeing admitting that he was paid over $100 million for presiding over a corporation that showed shocking failure in protecting the lives of airplane passengers. This follow-up to Rory Kennedy’s outstanding first documentary about Boeing focuses on the courageous whistleblowers who are distraught over the abandonment of the dedication to quality that was the company’s core commitment. Kennedy’s ability to gain the confidence of Boeing employees and clear-eyed depiction of the absence of consequences makes this a vital document of our times.

Loren King Another infuriating expose about corporate malfeasance and greed, Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing is prolific investigative documentarian Rory Kennedy‘s must-see follow-up to her 2022 film, “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing.” While that film exposed Boeing’s complicity in the crashes of two Boeing 737 Max jets in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people, Kennedy’s latest examines the corporation’s systemic and obscene retaliation against whistleblowers who tried to warn about shoddy work and safety negligence. Read full review.

Leslie Combemale Whether or not you have a fear of flying, you should still see documentarian Rory Kennedy’s follow up to her 2022 film Downfall: A Case Against Boeing, Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing. It really brings home how risky it is to be a whistleblower in a publicly traded corporate setting, but more importantly, it shows how little accountability there is for big corporations, even when lives are at stake. There’s also the planes themselves. When nearly all employees involved in their construction are unwilling to fly in them, what does that tell the rest of us? More than just amplifying the lack of corporate governance making our lives less safe, Kennedy reveals the impact of that lack of accountability for real people who lose loved ones as a result. The real question is, after seeing this doc, will any of us ever fly again?