REVIEW: YOU'VE BEEN TRUMPED (PG) (100 min)

Directed by Anthony Baxter.

In 2006, New York property developer Donald Trump purchased a large chunk of an estate north of Aberdeen, on the Scottish east coast.

He announced, in typically temperate style, that he intended to build "the world's greatest golf course" there, complete with a 450-room hotel, and hundreds of private chalets.

Somehow Trump charmed and bullied his way into getting all the planning permissions he needed - to the absolute astonishment of everybody it seems - and then brought in the bulldozers, as he was allowed to do.

But then Trump began to conduct a vicious and petty war against his new neighbours. Around his land, several property owners lived on their own small farms.

Trump publicly characterised their houses as "slums", the owners as "pigs", and then allegedly attempted to drive them off their land with a systematic campaign of harassment, with the local police force seemingly acting as Trump's personal goons.

You've Been Trumped is the award-winning documentary of what transpired over the next few years.

It's a disturbing and angering film, but also hugely entertaining and watchable.

All documentaries are partisan, and I'm sure there is a version of these events that Trump would be happier to have portrayed. But I admired and enjoyed this film immensely. Highly recommended.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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