The Human Experiment

Though Sean Penn executive-produced the film and voices its spare narration, the doc has a very generic tone, so much so that it might seem to belong on TV rather than in theaters.

It may leave many bases uncovered (a section on groundbreaking European legislation is inadequately explained), but it will also leave you looking a lot more closely at what you put on your skin, in your mouth and underneath your sink.

The movie was nicely shot with flashy graphics to explain the data that does exist. But in the end, this film will persuade only those who already believe.

The problem with The Human Experiment as an actual film and not just an anti-chemical treatise is that, though these people and the troubling statistics they cite are on the level, we're too rarely afforded the opportunity to reach our own conclusions based on them.

Co-directors Dana Nachman and Don Hardy haven't attributed all of their facts and figures, hence the proverbial grain of salt.

The movie’s style consists of tossing up a lot of heartbreaking medical stories next to a characterization of the industry as a mysterious monolith, and letting viewers finish the correlation in their heads. When it’s possible to use the same line of reasoning to push both truth and lies, different tactics are in order.