Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
Controversy erupts when an unassuming young man floods the American wine market with fake vintages valued in the millions, bamboozling the wine world elite, in this humorous and suspenseful tale of an ingenious con on the eve of the 2008 stock market crash.
Sour Grapes is an engaging documentary about Rudy Kurniawan's wine fraud, benefiting from a genuinely compelling real-life story with natural suspense and irony tied to the 2008 financial crash backdrop. The narrative is well-structured and humorous in tone, though the filmmaking craft is fairly standard for the true-crime documentary format. Cinematography and interview setups are competent but unremarkable. Novelty is moderate — the subject matter is distinctive and the con itself is fascinating, but the documentary approach follows well-worn true-crime conventions. The ending satisfies with the legal resolution but doesn't deliver a particularly profound or cinematic conclusion.