bob the moo At the time of the dot.com boom, Kaleil Tuzman and Tom Herman start up their own internet company seeking to offer a platform to enable activities carried out at the local Government level, such as the payment of parking tickets, applying for licenses and so on. We join them at the very start of this journey as they gather funding, grow the employee base and begin developing their product and compete for business and investment. However, in business as in life, things do not always go to plan.I was quite looking forward to this film, not least because it was one of the documentaries screened as part of the ten year anniversary of the BBC's Storyville stable – Storyville being known for the quality of the documentaries. Secondly I did also think the film sounded fascinating on many levels due to the subject matter but also the amount of access it had to the top people in the company throughout the entire process. I'll get to what I think of the film in a minute but firstly let stress that my focus will be what I thought of the film and NOT simply personal views on the people. Reading reviews here, I was surprised by the number that said little on the film but seemed to be reviewing Kaleil and Tom – several with opinions and insinuations that I personally would call offensive at best, racist at worst.Many have commented on the way Kaleil and Tom delivered (or failed to deliver) their product but again the concern for me as a viewer is how the makers of the film have failed to deliver. I'm not sure where the failing occurred but how it appears is that they thought the battle had been won simply because of their great access and that simply being there would be enough to make this fascinating viewing. They are wrong. I'm sure it must have been tough to edit the film down from two years into this running time but it feels like all they have done is cut together bits that are important, without really packaging it together or helping the audience understand anything beyond what we are seeing. As a result it really fails to portray much of value in regards business or the dot.com era – hell, even the closing captions seem brief and disinterested.Without a focus from the makers we are left to find our own and of course we end up on the individuals of Kaleil and Tom. This makes the film more of a fly-on-the-wall reality TV show, relying on personal tensions etc to drive the story forward; but you know what? It isn't that good. Both men are interesting to a point but neither individually or together do they justify a film to share this with the world. It is a shame because the film is not terrible by any means but without any sort of focus and a real lack of vision from the makers, we are left with very little of interest to work with and annoyingly it becomes increasingly apparent as you watch.

antony-1 This is an excellent, compelling look into a time that seems so alien and so far away now. The days when there was so much money being invested into promises, and how the dot com bubble burst and took so much with it.Even though we now know where the story ends, the documentary is gripping from start to finish. It charts the venture from the inception through to its demise, although it focuses more on the early stages. I was part of a dot com venture and it really brought back the memories of "everything is impossible, we are unstoppable" that was pushed by those that run the ventures. And in the case of govworks.com, the gorgeous and charismatic CEO even met Clinton. How could it all go wrong? The documentary also charts, in fact in particular charts, the effect of the company on the personal relationships of those involved. Some of the agonies they face are better than stories you see in scripted dramas, and because they are so real they are very involving.It's a shame that the latter stage's of the company's demise are skipped over, we cut from them having over 200 employees to just 50 with no real explanation on what happened in between. Maybe it wasn't really required, maybe they didn't want to be filmed, but it felt like a bit of a hole. It's the only real complaint about the documentary however.Overall it accomplished showing us the birth and death of a dot com very well, and how it affects those involved. And anyone who watches the documentary will probably like me go to www.govworks.com and with sadness see that the domain is owned by one of those companies that registers dead domains, and feel such a sadness that all that blood, sweat and tears ended this way.

rev4bart If you like movies like Boiler Room, your going to love this movie!!! This movie has it all..it takes you through a personal journey of the founders of govworks to the ultimate demise during the Internet roller coaster of the 90's.What makes this movie standout and better than other similar internet documentaries (i.e. e-Dreams) is that this actually includes some interesting drama and feels like you are watching reality TV at times. But what makes this better is that you have a quick business lesson going on in the background (i.e. venture capital, designing/testing the web site) The only negative is that I would of liked to see more of the techy stuff behind the scenes and if the scenes were a little better explained of what was going on (after watching it 2x, you will get most of it)..but I would of liked to know what really caused their demise or how much better and why was their competitor sites better?

arvy If you are interested, this is what these boys are doing now.Not convinced they have ever actually achieved anything, but the film is nevertheless interesting for the first 2/3s of the show.It follows the team raising money, hiring people, firing some others and getting swept up in the bubble of 99-2000.It would have been better to see the new CEO takeover and the machinations involved here as the demise that is shown is a purely personal one, and I would be interested in see what they thought about it after the event. Clearly Tom and Khalil work together (see below)http://www.recognitiongroup.com/articles.php?post=74 http://www.recognitiongroup.com/about_us.php?sub=2