Review of Erasing David (2009) by Mike M — 26 Apr 2010

This eye-catching, thought-provoking doc plays like a Morgan Spurlock project in thriller, rather than comic, mode... Some staginess/construction is evident: the paranoia Bond spirals into while off the map, dismantling his kit like Harry Caul in "The Conversation" and flailing in "Blair Witch" night vision when he retreats to the woods, is all too clearly (and, over the long run, monotonously) a performance.

The film's strongest material is unfaked, and taps into the high anxiety of the age: while ducking his pursuers, Bond discovers the extent to which his favoured online retailers and broadband provider have detailed his every move, and how individual lives have been ruined by heinous data mismanagement.

Aggressive lobbying by the private security sectors, coupled with the controlling-nannying influences of the State have, we learn, combined to leave the UK as the third biggest surveillance state behind China and Russia (who have form in this arena) - and that's even before we factor in ID cards.

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