Indian Point (2016) - Ivy Meeropol

Ivy Meeropol's Indian Point is a detailed look at the nuclear industry, focusing specifically on Indian Point, a nuclear power plant sitting merely 17 miles, give or take, from New York City.  Providing an intricate look at the core activities of this aging nuclear powerplant, Ivy Meeropol's Indian Point provides a surprisingly well balanced examination of this industry, exposing crony capitalism, corruption, and simple bureaucratically negligence, focused specifically on finding answers related to the most importance question of all, are these nuclear plants safe?  A rather by-the-numbers documentary, Indian Point is simply compelling due to the host of elements it untangles, focusing on how the Fukushima power plant disaster provided deadly warnings that have not been fully embraced by the federal government or the industry itself, questioning why this has occurred and the potential risks associated with this negligence.  One of the more interesting aspects of Indian Point is how it exposes the Nuclear industry being almost one solely built on a lot of trust, relying on engineers to competently do their job day in, and day out, with a slight mistake potentially proving catastrophic.  The film never questions their credentials, but simply suggests this isn't fair to the engineers, never cheapening itself to overbearing fear mongering, which is probably a biproduct of its balanced documentation.  Indian Point interviews local residents, government employees, industry employees, environmentalists, activists, and journalists, even wisely dedicating a lot of time to the engineers who work inside these power plants.  What becomes quite apparent about Indian Point is that everyone is to blame, from the government failing the industry and vice versa, due both to cronyism and straight up bureaucratic incompetence.  If one example sums up the tangled web of failures in which the Nuclear industry currently sits, it's how the local government itself in New York is now fighting the cronyism of the federal government, unwilling to even risk any potential disaster when so many live in such close proximity to Indian Point.  While I wish Indian Point was a little more balanced when it comes to focusing on how there are really no other competent alternatives to nuclear energy currently, the documentary casts a wide net in its depiction of the current state of the Nuclear Industry, revealing that perhaps the most frighting aspect of all this is that the industry relies more on faith than facts when it comes to safety.  

---