Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead is a personal story directed by Joe Cross, who finding himself one hundred pounds overweight, loaded up with steroids and trying to deal with an autoimmune disease, decides he’d had enough. This documentary begins with Joe weighing in at 310 pounds. He doesn’t see any future in his current condition except pain, suffering and an early demise. Doctors and conventional medicine seem unable to help him.
Joe Cross, who lives in Australia, decides to come to the Unites States where he plans a sixty-day road trip across the country eating only fresh veggie and fruit juice he makes in the back of his car. Joe’s goal is to lose weight and improve his health to the point where he will be able to stop taking all the medications and live a healthy life.
Joe starts his journey in New York City where he feels there will be the most temptation to go off his juice fast. In NYC he talks to people on the street to get their reaction to what he is trying to do. Joe meets and talks to about 500 people as he travels. In a truck stop in Arizona he meets Phil Staples, an obese truck driver who suffers from the same autoimmune disorder that he does. Phil weighs 429 pounds. Joe tells Phil about what he is doing and mentions that if Phil ever needs help to give him a call. One day back in Australia, Joe gets a call from Phil who is desperate.
What emerges is a documentary about Joe Cross and his journey along with Phil Staples amazing transition from extreme obesity to a healthy life. The juice fast not only helps each of them to lose weight, it also helps them overcome their autoimmune problem by detoxing their bodies. Soon they are able to get off all the medications they have been taking.
The documentary shows both men getting checkups to make sure it is safe to do the fast. Also checkups along the way. Joe emphatically suggests to others in the film that they also check with their doctors about doing this kind of fast.
Unlike Super Size Me, another hybrid documentary with someone on a mission, Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead presents a positive story in which it advocates good health. This documentary is inspirational. It presents a simple remedy for getting one’s physical and ultimately mental life back on track. Fast, Sick & Nearly Dead comes across as a serious nonfiction story advocating one way of obtaining good health.
Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead is well shot and edited in a way that keeps the pace moving. The progress that Joe, Phil and others make is amazing to watch. The documentary uses several animated scenes to explain an idea or situation. No particular juicer or other products are pitched, although there may be some incidental product placement. The focus is the idea of fasting on vegetable and fruit juices for a certain period of time to detox one’s body and gain a foothold on a healthy life style. Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead shows the progress of others beside Joe and Phil that testify to the success of the idea.
Review written by James R (Jim) R Martin
[box] FAT, SICK & NEARLY DEAD – A JOE CROSS FILM – Directed BY Joe Cross, Kurt Engfehr – 96 Minutes – 2011 – Director of Photography Daniel Marracino, Editors, Alison Amron and Christopher Seward. REBOOTYOURLIFE – http://www.jointhereboot.com/[/box]
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LINKS
Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead
Create Documentary Films, Videos and Multimedia: A Comprehensive Guide to Using Documentary Storytelling Techniques for Film, Video, the Internet and Digital Media Projects.