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Fahrenheit 9/11 film review
FAHRENHEIT 9/11
Running time: 122 mins
Starring: Michael Moore
The most anticipated film of the summer comes with the traditional requisites for a holiday blockbuster. An honest but flawed hero takes on the evil empire and discovers worlds of hierarchical power that make the average conspiracy theory seem like a simple truth. There may be no explosive conclusion, but it remains to be seen whether Michael Moore's fervent anti-Bush diatribe will have an effect in November. More Americans have already seen this documentary than any before it, and with its Cannes glory followed by a likely U.S. box office take of over $100m, it seems that Moore is filling a contemporary need for someone to take stock of some of the ludicrous anomalies of the world we live in.
Anyone who has read Moore's recent best-seller, Dude, Where's My Country, will be already familiar with the themes he rabidly pursues in his new film. Beginning with the world-changing events of September 11 - the screen fading to black as the planes hit the Twin Towers - Moore questions America's response, and more pointedly, the Bush regime's deep and troubling connections with the corporate military world.
Moore asks some incredible questions, all the more so since they all appear to be based on fact. Why were over twenty members of Osama Bin Laden's family flown out of the United States during the air travel embargo that followed 9/11? What were representatives of the Taleban doing on a guided tour of the State department six months before the attack? And what exactly is the nature of the relationship between the Bush family and the Saudi powers-that-be?
Aided by startling footage, Bush hones his target by showing lengthy clips from the schoolroom where George Dubya sat on that fateful morning. Informed of the attack, the President spent seven minutes staring into space. Bush is the fall guy throughout, with several sequences showing him making a fool of himself - some would call it too easy a target.
The second half of the film concentrates on America's eventual response, and as Moore points out, even though Osama was presumably in Afghanistan it was something of a fait accompli that Iraq would be attacked. He pulls the rug from under anyone who might still believe that WMDs were the reason, shows disturbing imagery of war casualties, and arguably more disturbing scenes of just how America recruits its soldiers (by targeting young poor districts). In the film's most moving moments, Moore shows the effects of a soldier's death on a distraught mother.
While it's undoubtedly entertaining stuff, Moore allows no comeback and any argument against his opinion is simply not there. Many will feel this is the film's central problem, and the lack of balance is perhaps responsible for the somewhat muted reaction to the end of the film - unlike the electrifying feeling of watching his superior Bowling For Columbine. Seeing Moore in action early in the film, when he literally puts words into the mouth of his interviewee, indicates that he didn't attend the school of hard truths, and the Clinton or Reagan administrations could have had equally damaging films made about them. It doesn't mean we should accept the fact that politics is basically corrupt, but in order to make any change, a less fanatical approach is always likely to be the better option.
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