This is a high quality production with an easy to follow narrative weaving the connective lines between food and water scarcity and those seeking to control it.

Perhaps one of the reasons that I was so engaged, is because unbeknowst to me before I watched it, a large portion of the story focuses on an issue in my state that I'm very well aware of. Our former Republican governor approved a foreign company to farm land and use unlimited water for free, and send the product back to their home country. This is one of the reasons he was voted out of office. The new Democratic governor cancelled their contract, but in the ensuing years, the foreign country drained the aquifer empty. Amusingly, in the epilogue, Nathan takes credit for the cancellation, without mentioning the change of political power. Everyone in the state was well aware of what happened, it was extensively reported.

It's a reminder to stay politically aware of the politicians that are aligned with corporations and foreign governments who are selling our food and water security away.

Sometimes a story is so big and involved that it's difficult to get a handle on it. That can be quite a challenge for even the most adept documentarians and investigative reporters, no matter how eager or adept they may be in taking on such an ambitious project. And that, unfortunately, is the case with the latest offering from director Gabriela Cowperthwaite in her eight-year-long collaboration with journalist Nathan Halverson of The Center for Investigative Reporting. In essence, the film seeks to identify and characterize the new flashpoints underlying emerging geopolitical conflicts. Just as those in recent years have been driven by the compulsion to secure valuable energy supplies, today's budding battlegrounds are once again tied to acquiring access to precious resources - in this case, food and water, along with the aquifers, agricultural land and processing facilities needed to yield these commodities. Evidence of the desperate, growing need for obtaining these materials has already begun to surface - albeit not always overtly - in such incidents as the Arab Spring and even the War in Ukraine. And, because of this developing crisis, those interested in locking down these resources have started scrambling to acquire them, primarily clandestinely, in regions where they're most plentiful. These efforts have been spearheaded by multinational corporations and global financial institutions in cooperation with countries that are experiencing, or have historically experienced, critical food and water shortages, such as China, Russia, Venezuela and the nations of the Middle East. And, to help ensure the success of these ventures, they have enlisted the support of mercenary muscle to achieve their goals. High-profile targets, primarily in Africa and even parts of the US, have come under growing scrutiny, unscrupulously grabbed from their rightful owners and leaving them destitute as a result. Needless to say, this is an incredibly complicated story, one that's difficult to tell, and, regrettably, that's somewhat apparent in the finished product. While the work of Cowperthwaite and Halverson is undoubtedly sincere, having brought a great deal of previously buried information to light, it's nearly impossible to relate this complex narrative in a concise and coherent manner. Given the many story threads involved and the well-camouflaged structures that have been set up to keep the truth and its principal participants concealed, it's a genuine challenge to intelligibly expose the overarching nature of this highly convoluted big picture. Some elements are thus underdeveloped or left incomplete, making this film an often-frustrating watch. That's unfortunate considering the importance of this story, one that has been largely flying below the radar and certainly deserves to be more widely exposed and detailed. With that said, though, "The Grab" represents a valuable start, and one can only hope there will be more releases like this that manage to dig deeper and discover more. It's also heartening that the picture addresses some of the victories that have come about in combatting this issue, particularly those that have benefitted Africans who have been subjected to what is essentially a new form of continental colonization. In an age where increasing social and political volatility is arising due to a failure to effectively address the world's hunger, it's essential that we become aware of this issue before it gets out of hand and leads us down a path we don't dare pursue.

Being told this had something related to Blackfish made me think this doc must have some weight. 10 mins in I thought I was missing something. 20mins in I thought I just hadn't quite slotted in to the information being presented. 30 mins in I realise they are presenting a lot of information like a graph, with no explanation of why it is going up or down and what the x or y is. 40 mins in I'm thinking why I have wasted 40mins of my life. I don't even know what this film is trying to tell me because it's so bad. This thing over here is a thing but another thing is doing this and that thing has recorded it. So water is really important but we don't have any. I even tried getting stoned halfway through to see if it made more sense but it didn't. And now I'm 2 hours older.