Critics are Raving about Escape Fire

The documentary film, Escape Fire:The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare, is opening this weekend in major cities across the US. Right here in Chicago, we are hosting the premiere on Friday, October 5th. Get your tickets before they're gone.

Haven't heard of Escape Fire yet? No worries - you will soon enough.

Here are the basics - it's an award-winning film that won rave reviews at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Following dramatic human stories and interviews with health care leaders, it pulls back the curtain on the defects in the American healthcare system and encourages low-cost preventative solutions for fixing the healthcare crisis. Escape Fire is about finding a way out.

In a recent interview with the Washington Post, the director, Matthew Heineman, talks about why he and his co-director Susan Froemke began working on the year three years ago: "Like many Americans, we were confused by everything we were hearing [about healthcare]. It had become such a political football that was being thrown back and forth. Frankly, the issue was dividing our country. We wanted to cut through it all — how our system was broken and why it didn’t want to change."

Here is what some of the movie critics are saying about the film:
 
The Village Voice's Anthony Kaufman says it's "A Must See! 'An Inconvenient Truth' for the healthcare debate."

Famed critic Roger Ebert calls Escape Fire "Extraordinary!" in a very personal blog post that delves into some of the issues the film tackles. In his official review, he gives the film 3.5 out of 4 stars and called the film "Stunning!" In describing America's health care system, Ebert says, "There's more money to be made in making people sick and healing them than in keeping them well in the first place...The documentary makes this argument with stunning clarity."

In the Huffington Post, Wendell Potter says of the film, "If you want to get a clearer understanding not only of why the U.S. health care system fails so many of us but, more importantly, how we can transform it to make it the best in the world, go to the movies this weekend."

Still not convinced? Watch the trailer and decide for yourself!

Stephani Becker
Project Director, Illinois Health Matters
Health & Disability Advocates