You've Been Trumped Review

A weak take down of Donald Trump's recent Scottish invasion that's light on hard facts and far too cosy for its own good.

Molly Forbes stirs her tatties, flashing a warm, wrinkly smile to camera before heading outside to tend to her chickens. "How many eggs do you get a day?" director Anthony Baxter asks. "Oh, sometimes two," replies Molly. "Sometimes one... Sometimes none."

If you're hankering for a politically-loaded human interest story that's underpinned by idle small talk instead of hard facts, look no further than You've Been Trumped, a piss weak take down of America's foremost aborted muskrat-iced corporate chunderfuck, Donald Trump, and his recent(ish) proposal to build a luxury golf resort on a pristine stretch of Aberdeenshire coastline.

The project is a worthy subject for a defamatory exposé and an easy target, not least because it's fronted by a fire-spitting, V-sign flipping tycoon who publicly sneers at the "slum-like" living conditions of the cornfed locals whose homes he's about to destroy. But Baxter arrives on the scene too late to take action; construction is already well underway by the time his camcorder starts rolling. So what's a doc maker to do?

Baxter's rather disappointing answer is to recycle clips from Bill Forsythe's 1983 charmer Local Hero while vehemently demonising Trump at every turn by fading in generic Imperial March-esque music whenever his blacked-out Range Rover convoy creeps into view.

By contrast Molly, her son Michael and the small number of resilient fisher folk who simply refuse to budge are painted not as the crusty NIMBYists the regional press have labelled them, but a collective allegory for the liberal war against capitalism. The reality is they are neither, just a laid back bunch who've been cut adrift by their government.

The closer Baxter gets to them – the more he dramatises this ongoing David versus Goliath saga – the further he strays from answering some fundamental questions. Who, for example, was responsible for giving a Site of Scientific Interest a price tag? What are the long-term social, environmental and economic ramifications of Trump International Golf Links? And is Trump's model for a sustainable ecosystem at all viable?

Being denied access to the Trump Organization and the council members who paved the way for the deal makes Baxter's job more difficult to a point (although it's unlikely either would deviate from the company line), but shot after shot of swaying Marram grass manipulatively cut to the elfin hymns of Sigur Rós is a poor substitute for thorough investigatory fieldwork.