Startup.com

This feature, a debut for Jehane Noujaim, 13th in a line of undistinguished flicks for his co-director Chris Hegedus, is not about supernatural doings but internet start-ups.

Kaleil Isaza Tuzman and Tom Herman, played by themselves, are two entrepreneurs with an idea which is too boring to relate. They get some money together. It all goes pretty well, and they're on the news a lot. Somehow they managed to draft in Bill Clinton, who does a small cameo as himself. Tuzman is fat and unscrupulous and says things like: "I refuse, refuse, refuse to lose." Herman is ineffectual and, as it turns out, slightly dumb.

Their company grows; they have morning meetings, at the end of which they do an "enthusiasm shout", which involves shouting enthusiastic things in unison. There is no narrative structure, no real event, and the interest is focused entirely on the interaction between two people who themselves have no interest in anything but money. I don't know whether understatement can convey how unengaging that is, but I'm prepared to let it try.

There are nice little vignettes, as is the way with this docu-genre. A full-staff Outward Bound-style weekend is fascinatingly obnoxious. Otherwise, though, this is curiously flat - and the lack of any plotting makes it impossible to tell when it might end, which turns what could have been a neutral experience into pure torture. If you're Martha Lane Fox, you might conceivably be interested; otherwise, don't put yourself through it.

Startup.com
Cert: cert15