Two families locked in a blood feud in the mountains of Albania, the victims of the BP oil spill, migrant workers in a Florida tomato field, and imprisoned former Chicago Sun-Times owner Conrad Black all have a part in this wide-ranging, smart, and highly entertaining look at the concept of “debt,” whether it involves cold-hard cash or the proverbial debt to society. Basing the film on popular writer Margaret Atwood’s influential book “Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth,” director Baichwal (MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES) takes synergistic leaps through time and space to examine the human history of crime and punishment and guilt and expiation.
