whistleblower

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.

It isn’t necessary to have seen Downfall: the Case Against Boeing in order to appreciate Kennedy’s comprehensive research and brilliant craftsmanship in Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing. Again, she uses archival and contemprary footage, on camera interviews with experts and workers, and heartwrenching interviews with family members who suffered the loss of their loved ones to tell harrowing truths about profit-motivated corporate behaviour. Always concerned with the pursuit of justice, Kennedy gives us a fascinating primer about the aviation industry and its technology as well as a compelling and alarming reveal of corporate greed that prioritizes profits over people’s safety.

Following up on her 2022 documentary Downfall: The Case Against Boeing, in this documentary, director Rory Kennedy focuses on lawsuits related to those deadly crashes and another lawsuit brought by a whistleblower within the company, as it takes a deep, evidence-based look at what has gone wrong at this once-admired American company, after it shifted, under a series of CEOs with no experience in the aviation industry, away from a quality focus to a “profits above all else” business approach.

If you’re already afraid of plane travel, Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing will make you ready to book your travel on trains and ships for the rest of your life. I’m half-joking, but I’m also half-serious; the film doesn’t give you a good sense that everything has changed for the better at Boeing, which has been at the center of recent deadly crashes. Indeed, following the case of whistlebower John Barnett, his death and the congressional response Boeing had to accusations of profits over people reduces any possible goodwill anyone might have had towards the company.