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Film: Fahrenheit 911
Written and Directed by and Starring Michael Moore (Lions Gate)
Reviewed by Rusty Pipes
Oh no! Here comes another Michael Moore documentary!
Is George Bush shaking in his boots yet? Maybe not, but I am certain he is terribly annoyed by Moore's new work and he's marshaled his forces to try to discredit this movie as much as possible. Just the other day the father of one of my son's friends told him that Moore obviously made this movie "just to make money." Oh really? First, it makes me wonder where he picked up such a line, maybe Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity? Then I think, "Imagine that, now the Bushies are against someone trying to make money!" I expect nasty remarks about Moore's weight any time now, as if that were capable of warping one's politics to the left.
Rest assured Fahrenheit 911 is a terribly disturbing film. It brings up facts about Bush spiriting Bin Laden family members out of the US right after 9-11, before any questioning by the FBI or the CIA. Imagine the howl you'd hear from the right wing if Al Gore had done that! Perhaps most telling though is the picture of Bush in a Florida classroom, just after the planes hit on the morning of the eleventh. Like Moore, I have to wonder what exactly IS going on in this guy's head. Sure he can give a good speech as long as everything is written out exactly for him. But no, far more disturbing, there are the sequences showing the bombing we undertook last spring in Iraq, of buildings destroyed and civilians we killed and maimed.
Back at home, Moore follows a Michigan woman whose son was killed for much of the second half of the film. Her grief hits you like a eighteen wheel truck. At another point an old Iraqi woman who's family just got bombed is shown screaming to Allah for vengeance and her grief is just as gut-wrenching. It certainly makes the violence against our troops there understandable. The right wing will probably claim her words were mistranslated or that it's actually a sequence from the Saddam years, but aside from making a few sly remarks and throwing in one of his patented gotcha moments (buttonholing Congressmen to send their own kids to Iraq) I am inclined to believe the material in Fahrenheit is just as Moore says it is. It's clear by the end of the movie that Bush has blood on his hands.
It's no wonder at all that this film is the first documentary that won the Palm d'Or at Cannes, or that it reigned as the number one movie for its first weekend. Conservatives will moan that it was all a big set up by the left, that more people see Face The Nation each weekend, but they can't disguise the facts. This movie was number one with only 500 screens nationwide and it set a new attendance record for documentaries in the process.
The total effect of Moore's work is astounding. Even conservatives who see it should be furious with Bush; in fact anyone who sees Fahrenheit 911 and still wants to vote for him must have blinders on.
The Skinny:
Am I glad I saw the film? Hell yes, this is the Awful Truth indeed!
Would I go to see it again? I already did and I'm taking as many people as I can. The DVD is coming out before the election, I'm certainly going to get one and every voter should see it.
© 2004 - Rusty Pipes