MONEY, power, race, a mansion stuffed with treasure, a city plagued by scandal -- about all that's missing from The Art of the Steal, a hard-hitting documentary about a high-cultural brawl, is a hot woman with a warm gun. At the heart of the movie, energetically directed and argued by Don Argott, is the celebrated Barnes Foundation, which houses a private collection in suburban Philadelphia groaning with European masterworks, African sculptures, Asian prints and American Indian ceramics, among other items. The founda- tion even owns a farmhouse furnished with decora- tive arts, and its surrounding 12-acre arboretum is filled with rare flora from around the globe.

It isn't the Chilean monkey puzzle tree, though, that has had curators, academics, journalists and politicians pointing fingers and crying foul in recent years; it's the art, especially the post- Impressionist and early Modernist paintings signed by the likes of Cézanne, Picasso, Renoir, Degas, Manet, Monet and Van Gogh.

Amassed by a working class striver turned col- lector named Albert C Barnes (1872-1951), these paintings are the glittering prizes in the foundation that bears his name and that in total has been val- ued at more than $25 billion, though the collection is sometimes breathlessly described as priceless. In his will Barnes stipulated that the collection was to remain in its original locale, far from the reach of the Philadelphia elite he despised. But contracts can be broken, wills challenged, legacies dismantled. And in the years after Barnes's death, the collection became the focus of a fasci- nating fight among an array of interests. Much of the louder part of the battle involved its location: some wanted it to stay put, thereby honouring Barnes's wishes. Others wanted it moved to Philadelphia, where it would be more accessible and, of course, could become a desirable, lucrative tourist attraction.

Argott wisely doesn't pretend that any of this is a mystery: shortly after some introductory text, he shows the former Philadelphia mayor John F Street announcing the foundation's planned relocation to the city, joking how he had biked past the original site recently and waved, "See you soon."

Argott also doesn't feign disinterest. As its title suggests, The Art of the Steal is nothing if not agen- da-driven, having been paid for by a former foun- dation student, Lenny Feinberg, who -- to quote the movie's notes -- "initiated, funded and was intimately involved in the making of The Art of the Steal. That partisanship helps explain the movie's vibrancy and sense of urgency. Construction on a new central Philadelphia home for the foundation began last year, and some galleries in the original building have already been closed for the expected move in 2012. Although a judge in 2008 refused to consider a request for a new hearing by opponents of the move, the fight continues off the screen and, now, on.