Having already tackled the Iraq war (Fahrenheit 9/11) and American healthcare (Sicko), the rabble-rousing docu-thug Michael Moore sets his sights on the US economy. And the audience at the Venice Film Festival, where the film premiered, was eating out of his hand. Not only did the film prompt enthusiastic cheers as the end titles rolled, some particularly eager souls applauded the opening credits.
It is not capitalism per se with which Moore takes issue. Rather it is Wall Street and corporate America that are the villains here, in a US-centric film that sticks firmly within his country’s borders.
The film starts by juxtaposing a bloated and doomed Roman empire and shots of Washington DC, before segueing into an eye-opening whistlestop tour of US social and corporate ills. A family is evicted from the home they built themselves, on a fourth-generation farm. A scavenging property broker gloats as he explains how other people’s personal tragedies are his meal ticket. The corporate practice of taking out “dead peasant” insurance on their employees, meaning that they benefit from the employee’s death, is exposed. An assortment of priests and bishops are wheeled on to explain that capitalism is evil and was not, in fact, the preferred economic model of our Lord and Saviour. The camera hungrily hones in on crying children and the desperate and disenfranchised.
Subtle it ain’t. But even those who are resistant to Moore’s looming presence in front of the camera would have to agree that his techniques are effective, even if those techniques frequently boil down to taking the glaringly obvious and then simplifying it further.
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While the subject matter has been covered before, more thoroughly, in films such as The Corporation (2003) and the Oscar-nominated I.O.U.S.A. (2008), the clout of the Moore name should ensure that his message has a wider reach.
Despite, or perhaps because of, his weakness for crass manipulation, Moore mounts a persuasive case that all is not well with America. Thanks to his trademark use of archive footage and witty, playful editing, this film is as much entertainment as it is a polemic.
His solution to the evils of capitalism (Democracy! Yay!) is less compelling. He ends the film with what sounds like a campaign slogan: “I refuse to live in a country like this. And I’m not leaving!” he rages, before exhorting the audience to “join me”.
Whether the American public will be persuaded to part with more hard-earned cash to hear more economic bad news remains to be seen.