Film Review: "Downfall: The Case Against Boeing" (2022).

From the director of American Hollow and Without a Net: The Digital Divide in America comes Downfall: The Case Against Boeing. This documentary film directed by Rory Kennedy and written by Mark Bailey and Keven McAlester. A searing investigation of a once-iconic company and its tragic failures, the film exposes how Wall Street’s influence and Boeing’s crumbling internal culture resulted in two historic plane crashes, 346 fatalities, and a shocking cover-up.

Manufactured by Boeing's Boeing Commercial Airplanes division, the fourth generation of the Boeing 737, the Boeing 737 MAX is a narrow-body airliner that succeeds the Boeing 737 Next Generation (NG) and competes with the Airbus A320neo family. The 737 MAX is based on earlier 737 designs, with more efficient CFM International LEAP-1B engines, aerodynamic changes, including its distinctive split-tip winglets, and airframe modifications. In late August 2011, the new series was announced. In late January 2016, it took its maiden flight and was certified by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in March 2017. In May 2017, the first delivery was a MAX 8 to Malindo Air, with whom it commenced service in late May 2017. The 737 MAX series has been offered in four variants, offering one hundred and thirty-eight to two hundred and four seats in typical two-class configuration and a three thousand, 3,300 to 3,850 nmi (6,110 to 7,130 km) range. The 737 MAX 7, MAX 8 (including the denser, 200–seat MAX 200), and MAX 9 are intended to replace the 737-700, -800, and -900 respectively, and a further-stretched 737 MAX 10 is available. As of November 2020, the Boeing 737 MAX had a backlog of three thousand, two hundred and ninety units. The 737 MAX suffered a recurring failure in the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) causing two fatal accidents, Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, in which a total of three hundred and forty-six people died. From March 2019 to November 2020, it was subsequently grounded worldwide. Investigations faulted a cover-up of a known defect by Boeing, and lapses in the certification by the FAA. After being charged with fraud, Boeing settled to pay over $2.5 billion in penalties and compensation. Boeing produced over four hundred and fifty MAX aircraft awaiting delivery, about half of which were expected to be delivered in 2021, and the majority of the remainder in 2022. In late November 2020, the FAA cleared the MAX to resume service, subject to a list of mandated design and training changes. Transport Canada and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) both recertified the MAX in late January 2021, subject to additional requirements. The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) followed suit in early December, as over a hundred and eighty countries out of a hundred and ninety-five had lifted the grounding.

As a dissection of injustice and inhumanity, the film is forthright and unsparing, and its message is a worthy one. Kennedy's take on this shocking and convoluted quagmire finds its balance somewhere between oblique reportage and post-hoc apologia.

Simon says Downfall: The Case Against Boeing receives: