By: Lotti Pharriss Knowles
Los Angeles, CA (The Hollywood Times) 7/25/2025 – I’m leading off this review with a bold statement: Death & Taxes, Justin Schein and Robert Edwards’ new documentary opening today in Los Angeles, could well be the most important and relevant American film I’ll see this year – and maybe for many years to come.
It’s a gut-punch and cinematic achievement on personal, social and cultural levels. And like Sinners, my other favorite film of 2025 so far, I hope it’s remembered and recognized when Awards Season comes around.
Schein, the main visionary behind the film, masterfully weaves together the intimate narrative of his own family with the larger story of ever-growing wealth inequality in the United States. The main focus is (wisely) on his complicated late father, and his father’s compulsion to preserve as much of the wealth he created as an entertainment industry mogul as possible, regardless of the personal costs that drive might exact. It’s captivating and heart-wrenching, but it also lays the foundation for the film’s broader social statement. His father’s obsessions are a microcosm of our country’s obsessions with individual success and the “Self-Made Man” mythos as crucial components of The American Dream. And in the end, the belief that money can buy happiness is poignantly debunked.
Schein has a wealth of home movies and photographs which aid him in telling the family’s story. Like many aspiring filmmakers, it seems he had his video camera documenting his life almost constantly from his teenage years on – but I’ll say that any annoyance that filmic scrutiny might have caused others was worth it for this end result.
The “educational” components of the film are well-served by archival footage and interviews with both conservative and liberal economics experts, such as Robert Reich and Grover Norquist. Beautiful motion graphics by David W. Mester also add to the artistic success of the film.
Currently the film is in limited release at select theaters around the United States, and screenings can be requested through the official website. I hope it will soon find a wider release, at least via streaming. Death & Taxes is a brave treatise on capitalism in a moment of shocking cowardice by major profiters of that system, and my biggest concern is that distributors will shy away from it in the current climate. I stand ready to support that entity who will prove me wrong.
