In the US (and other countries), when mass casualties happen, people and organization plan the payouts and how much each person gets. This person often times, in the biggest cases, is US attorney Ken Feinberg. Playing God is a documentary about him and his life, working on some of the toughest cases in the country including 9/11, the BP oil spill, and a case of pension funds being taken away. Through the film, his persona is slowly shed to reveal the man behind the cases, making him more human and more relatable.
The film directed by Karin Jurschick shows the man under a light that most who has dealt with him do not usually get to see him under. The film is mostly about Feinberg’s point of view and how he talks about himself, but it also shows him at work and how he handles the pressure and everything that come from his work. Through his talks and those of people who has worked with him and his wife’s. It paints a portrait of the man but does feel a bit one sided even though it does include people he has worked against in court and in settlement cases. The film does do a great job of showing how the legal side of settlements works and how it eventually takes a toll on the people having to work it. The film is about Feinberg but it about much more than just him, it’s about the people in settlement situations from both sides and how these things work from start to finish. It also shows why some people accept settlements with all their conditions but does not touch on why some reject them enough or explain this clearly.
The film is done in an almost clinical manner for most of its runtime with interviews of Feinberg and others taking the most time and other situations like when he attends a town hall meeting about pension funds. The proceedings come off almost emotionless from Feinberg’s and the filmmaker’s side of things while the others involved are more expressive. This gives an odd balance and a feeling about Feinberg that may not put him in a good light for a lot of viewers.
The film is well shot and edited, but it feels clinical, it feels like they are trying to completely remove as much of the emotions involved as possible when the subject is anything but cold. The settlement side of it is cold, but the people involved are anything but. These people bring their small touches to the film and help make it more human and make it something that is absolutely worth watching. This film is about the how and the why and not so much about the feelings it seems even though feelings are involved. Documentaries are supposed to be fairly cold to keep their subjectivity, but feelings are what keep people watching. How it makes them feel, how the people involved makes them feel, all of this is just natural so to keep most of it out of it on one side makes the lead subject feel colder than he most likely is.
Playing God shows clearly how the world of post mass casualty events and their settlements work, how it’s not always fair and how some people would rather take a settlement than keep going. The film is fairly cold, but contains a lot of information about the above mentioned and other cases and how they work. It’s a documentary worth watching as it will help understand this not often talked about field of work.