The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant

'The Last Truck' is a straightforward account of a grim, Ohio winter; and the closing of a giant automobile factory, owned by the troubled General Motors. Such a huge plant is always going to dominate the local economy; the film follows the soon-to-be redundant workforce, as they contemplate a future world that may not be as kind to them as the one they enjoyed previously. The film makes the important point that GM's high cost base is due mainly to a pension bill, rather than through overpayment of current staff, a problem widespread in many modern economies but maybe particularly severe in America because of the absence of state-funded alternatives to corporate pension plans. What it doesn't mention is something that many outside the U.S. might assert: that fundamentally, modern American cars are rubbish. The factory in question built S.U.V.s, for which demand fell drastically when the economy fell on hard times; the likes of GM were particularly hit because they never tried to make fuel-efficient vehicles in the days when oil was cheap. Nonetheless, this is still a sympathetic portrait of the characters of the men and women who worked the line; and a grim reminder of the human costs of recession.