“This is a corrupt Texaco lawyer,” declares attorney Steven Donziger, pointing dramatically at Chevron attorney Diego Larrea. Lawyers from both sides of the class action lawsuit Aguinda v. Chevron have descended upon the office of an Ecuadorian judge, resulting in a verbal battle that continues into the building's corridors as attorneys grandstand and news cameras roll. It's the closest the documentary Crude comes to being an all-out courtroom drama. Most of the legal arguments in this film take place in the Amazon jungle, where lead attorney for the plaintiffs Pablo Fajardo and Chevron lawyer Adolfo Callejas litigate at the very rainforest sites the plaintiffs-30,000 Ecuadoreans-maintain Chevron contaminated. Filmmaker Joe Berlinger spent three years documenting the unfolding court case, interviewing lawyers on both sides and following the story from Chevron stockholder meetings to the jungles of Ecuador. The result is a gripping David and Goliath story of activists pitted against a corporate giant, graphically illustrating the impact of our energy consumption on the indigenous people of the Amazon, who face rising cancer rates, birth defects, and other health problems as they struggle to survive in a poisoned landscape. It's also a portrait of two of the plaintiffs' attorneys-the bombastic, media-savvy Donziger and the more reserved Fajardo, who began his working life at fourteen in the oil fields of Texaco. Alternately inspiring, funny, disturbing, and infuriating, Crude offers a thoughtful and complex look at the issues surrounding political reality and corporate responsibility in Latin America.