Documentary about the rise and fall of a publishing empire, from edgy magazine to billionaire-backing to bankruptcy has a ‘you had to be there’ vibe
‘C
oolness is not a renewable resource,” says a contributor to this documentary about Vice magazine’s rise and fall. In the late 2000s and 2010s Vice grew from a punk magazine into a digital media empire by telling the world what was cool (more specifically by telling millennials, then in their cool-seeking prime). By 2017, it was valued at nearly $6bn; in 2023, Vice filed for bankruptcy. A man who saw it from the inside is TV chef Eddie Huang, the director and frontman of this film. He had a long-running show on the Viceland TV channel and says he’s still owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties.
Huang is also an advert for the best of Vice: fast, funny and authentic. The film begins with plenty of “you had to be there” stories about Brooklyn before gentrification, and interviews with early staff. This isn’t meant unkindly, but Vice Is Broke will be essential viewing for anybody who ever worked there, with its details about who had what job title and when. Clips show why Vice felt so edgy (like that time they took basketball star Dennis Rodman to North Korea to meet Kim Jong-un).
