Blue Vinyl is a good, Michael Moore-esque muckraker with a homespun tone. Co-director Judith Helfland, on a mission to discover the origins of her parents' new blue vinyl siding, uncovers some surprising information: not only is the material extremely dangerous when burned, as an MGM hotel fire made embarrassingly clear, but its industry conspires to conceal the dangers involved in its production, which has inflicted liver and larynx cancer on workers and may have adverse effects on the environment surrounding its factories. Careful to personalize the issues, she humorously attempts to shame her parents into discarding the vinyl and not so humorously refers it back to the medical disaster that gave her cervical cancer.

The film is not without its problems: while it gets high marks for Helfland's globetrotting and information-gleaning, she and directing partner Daniel B. Gold are a little clumsy in their structuring: after some appalling exposé material, including the testimony of horribly abused Venetian workers, Blue Vinyl peters out in attempts to find, with little success, affordable solutions to the cheap vinyl siding. It's a point that, though it needs to be made, distracts us from the outrages that should be front and centre. Despite its flaws, the film is humane, unpretentious, and shocking enough to make you look askance at a previously unassuming substance.*** (out of four)-Travis Hoover