A man wrongly imprisoned for more than a decade on fraud charges is released in 2011, undeterred from his work in economics. His name is Martin Armstrong, and in the economic world he is known as “the forecaster” – making predictions of the future of the economy based on the formula of pi – and predicting an economic downturn every 8.6 years.

Because of this, Martin became a very sought after man. Holding the key to a formula this important is what unfortunately took many years of his life away from him, confined to prison. The documentary really emphasizes the devastating effect the imprisonment had on Martin, so much so that for a while you forget this is a documentary about economic forecasting, instead delving more into the moral high ground of feeling sorry for him, and the way he was wronged by the government. The majority of the film displays Martin as man that can ‘do no wrong’, someone that has come back after falling so low, someone we should undoubtedly believe about the economic predictions because testimony from previous friends/colleagues and family, have said he’s always been right.

… predictions of a worrying future destined to fail …

The film is what you would expect from a documentary about the economy. It shows predictions of a worrying future destined to fail because of the constant borrowing, and mounting debts each country is making. The facts are made obvious, if not only from Martin himself talking at conferences, but also by other economic figures discussing information which backs up Martin’s information.

THE FORECASTER is pretty mind-numbing for the majority of audiences out there, purely for the fact of the subject it is about, and the flat narrative, where not a lot else happens apart from plentiful discussions of the bleak economic future we have ahead of us. Surely, only those in the know about these kinds of issues and topics will have any inkling about what they’re talking about in this film, due to a lot of terminology and the facts being explained not being something that the average Joe would know, and this film expects us to know what its saying.

THE FORECASTER does have some importance though, showing us things we need to know about our future, a future that will undoubtedly happen if we don’t make changes immediately. Despite its boring premise and narrative, THE FORECASTER is an essential film, one that shouldn’t be ignored by those in the economy, especially bankers, and those who run our countries.