Percy vs Goliath

In trying to stay out of the weedy details of patent law, farming practices, and biodiversity, director Clark Johnson only creates more confusion in telling Schmeiser's story. As a viewer, it's baffling: Why would a corporation sue potential customers and risk turning off other potential customers? Even more baffling is why courts would agree that Monsanto owned the rights to a crop if seeds were accidentally cross-pollinated through the wind. Writers Garfield Lindsay Miller and Hilary Pryor fail to make clear that Monsanto's "marketing practice" was to blackmail farmers, knowing that their genetically modified product would contaminate crops at neighboring farms, at which point the pesticide-resistant "gene" would overpower the naturally grown yield. Monsanto would make an outrageous financial claim with the threat of legal action, and farmers without the resources to fight would settle by contracting to buy the company's seeds in the future and pay a licensing fee.

The scenes in Percy vs Goliath are choppy, with no time given to help viewers truly understand who Schmeiser and his wife were as people and their role in the community beyond making pies for a local fair. The supporting characters, an activist publicist and a small-town trial lawyer, are one-dimensional despite seasoned actors Christina Ricci and Zach Braff giving the parts their all. And it's hard to dismiss the nagging question of why a Saskatchewan farmer has a New York accent (you can take Walken out of New York, but you can't take New York out of Walken). Still, there's much to take away from this drama, including the far-reaching results of standing up for yourself. And for those interested in how we keep nature natural in an age of biotechnology, the movie provides a jumping-off point to inspire young viewers to ask key questions. Schmeiser definitely earned his spot as an icon for farmers' rights, but Percy vs Goliath shares only a grain of his phenomenal story.