Into The Fire – Review

Into The Fire by Steven Davies, Bryan Law, and Dan Dicks is a documentary about the Toronto G20 summit in 2010, the massive crackdown that imposed martial law across the whole city and the unusual style of policing that allowed the Black Bloc to run riot while greeting peaceful protesters with a baton to the face. It is without a doubt the most terrifying thing I have seen this year leaving me quivering with a mixture of fear and rage that no fictional film can come close to instilling.

As far as made for internet ‘truth’ documentaries go this one stands out from the crowd like a sore thumb of pure quality. It shines as a documentation of the events surrounding the G20, relying on the footage of various people on the ground to  tell the story, as opposed to much of the found footage that goes into online documentaries. At 2 hours it’s a slog, but a well paced one that draws you further and further into the events of the week that continually unfold from pre G20 Toronto to the aftermath displaying all the curiosities in between.

The creators have put themselves on the line to try get the views of protesters, the public and the police leading to shady stories of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, meetings with provocative activist Charlie Veitch (who quickly gets dragged off and thrown in a cage for being too cocky) and encounter with one of Toronto’s friendliest police officer who’s upholding the law when all her co workers are abusing it.

It offers a window into the police state that keeps on popping up when the big wigs are in town and the treatment that you can expect when you say things like “good luck on Saturday” to the authorities.

If you take anything from this film don’t let it be a foreboding sense of fear but a useful chunk of knowledge of what happens when Mr Fancy Pants comes to your town.

-Paz