That being said, Jacobs, Longstreet, and Rouse do a rousing job of crafting their starkly contrasting, even Dickensian, archetypes. The camera does succeed in bringing us right into the shockingly, still much-ravaged landscape of the gulf territories. There is no way any American could watch this chronicle without at least a twinge of horror, grief, or shame. It’s this footage, though, and the stalwart grace of these victims, that also serves to infuse the most hope into the film.

For a first effort, Low and Behold is quite appealing. Much credit here is due its likeable cast, and a solid script. For me, however, Turner’s journey—though definitely influenced by the kinetic—secretly wounded Nixon and never really transcends its beginnings. More aptly, it stops and watches for a moment, and then continues on. If I’m meant to feel that Turner has been substantially altered, then the filmmakers have failed to make their thesis. This failure, however, tends to leave us with an even more disturbing, more relevant one, as it jumps from the emotional final moment to a closing scene. We follow Turner’s rickety little hatchback through the wilted landscape and the shattered homesteads that he measured and assessed to earn his daily bread, heading back to a life less dreary. After all the shock and awe expressed in America’s public lamentations when Katrina rocked and tore asunder one of our most vibrant cities and its culture, isn’t that was most of us did: stop, watch for a moment, and then continue on with our lives?

Grade: B-