When asked to name an environmental documentary feature that was released in 2006, most people immediately think of “An Inconvenient Truth”, Al Gore’s mega-popular sermon on global warming that remained in the public consciousness long after it had left theaters. Only a few people will remember seeing a much smaller film, “Who Killed the Electric Car?”, that was released shortly afterwards and presents writer/director Chris Paine’s expose on the rise and fall of plug-in electric vehicles during the late 1990s in California. It’s possible that Gore’s star power simply overwhelmed Paine’s smaller film, or that Sony, the distributor of “Electric Car”, shied away from the media blitz that Paramount initiated in order to support “Inconvenient Truth”, but the real problem with “Who Killed the Electric Car?” – and perhaps the reason it got so little attention – is that it never answers the logical rejoinder to the question in it’s own title: “Who cares?” Where Gore’s film succeeds – and “Electric Car” fails – is in explaining to the everyday person just why our current environmental situation is so precarious, and then offering solutions to that same problem. Ironically, the exact opposite should be true. On the surface, Paine’s film appears to be the more light-hearted and accessible of the two, with a clever concept that recounts the story of the electric car’s “demise” as a murder mystery, replete with a crime scene, suspects, and verdict. But early into the film’s opening scene – a mock funeral for GM’s EV1 (the electric car at the center of the aforementioned “murder” plot) – it becomes readily apparent that everyone in the documentary, including the director, takes this issue very, very, very seriously. Indeed, they may be right to do so, but the problem with the film is that it fails to explain why. Why do people literally break down in tears at the “mock” funeral? Why do former EV1 owners risk the likelihood of arrest in order to protest in front of GM’s impound lot? Why is the electric car so important to the environment? Instead, the next 90 minutes are spent attempting to assign blame for a crime that few people care about, and even fewer understand , in a tedious exploration of consumer indifference, political corruption, and corporate timidity. “Who Killed the Electric Car?” could have been a great documentary – the facts certainly support it’s case. But the tone of the film is all wrong. “An Inconvenient Truth” worked as a serious feature because it incorporated tearjerker images of glaciers literally falling apart and polar bears drowning in the arctic. On the other hand, it’s difficult to sympathize with protagonists of “Electric Car” – rich movie stars such as Tom Hanks, Mel Gibson, and Phyllis Diller that used to own EV1s – and the scenes in which melancholic music is played over footage of the cars being demolished seem forced. Had the filmmakers utilized a more satirical approach, like Michael Moore did with an equally serious topic in “Fahrenheit 9/11”, perhaps “Who Killed the Electric Car?” would have been able to spread it’s important message to a wider audience.