The following is a snip from a recent article about the movie. I watched the movie last week and will be posting my review shortly.
Eric Martinis, a longtime Kentlands resident and former head of the
Kentlands Film Society, spent about 18 months creating ‘‘The Downline,”
a documentary that examines the inner workings of the ‘‘network
marketing” or ‘‘multi-level marketing” business model by following
several distributors.Network marketing is associated with companies such as Amway, Mary Kay Cosmetics and The Pampered Chef, Martinis said.
However, some businesses have abused the system to create lucrative
pyramid schemes that focus more on recruitment than product sales, he
said. These businesses have burned some investors and tarnished the
industry, he said.‘‘People froth at the mouth. … Anytime I talk to someone and say,
‘What do you think about MLMs,’ everyone has an opinion or story about
it,” Martinis said.
