AllMovie

America's national infrastructure was once considered one of our crowning achievements, but in this documentary narrated by Academy Award winner Richard Dreyfuss and directed by Emmy Award-winning investigative journalist Leslie Cardé, viewers learn how our country's crumbling bridges, dams, levees, and highways put millions of Americans at risk every day. Using an investigation into the little-known causes of the post-Katrina levee failures as a springboard to examine how corruption, collusion, and cronyism have infected the highest levels of government, Cardé and company reveal how the Army Corps of Engineers -- the very agency charged with insuring that our national infrastructure remains intact -- has sacrificed the needs of our nation in favor of entering into self-serving deals with corporate America. Having wasted billions of dollars in taxpayer money on rebuilding other nation's infrastructures while neglecting to ensure that our own are properly maintained, we are forced to watch our streets crumble as lobbyists and gluttonous politicians funnel money into pointless pet projects, and those sent to investigate the matter are bribed into covering up their true findings. Interviews with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists, top scientists, United States senators and congressmen, and whistleblowers who risk their lives and livelihood in order to speak out, America Betrayed is a sobering wake-up call to anyone who places blind trust in government, and a challenge to Washington to hold corrupted officials accountable for their misdeeds.