Bowling For Columbine Review
by John Ulmer (johnulmer2003 AT msn DOT com)December 9th, 2003
BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE
4.5/5 stars
REVIEW BY JOHN ULMER
Documentaries are probably the hardest types of film to review, primarily because it all comes down to whether or not you agree with the filmmaker or not. Style helps, but you can't recommend a documentary you disagree with, can you?
To come out with the truth before I get too far into this review, I will say that I totally disagree with Michael Moore on almost all subjects. To call him a liberal is an understatement -- so from a Republican's standpoint, it's very hard to give his film a good rating.
"Bowling for Columbine," like most of Moore's films, is seriously flawed. He presents a lot of information as truth when it is clearly not so. As entertaining as the History of the US cartoon was, it was also quite incorrect in many ways, and guess what -- killer bees DID come to America through Texas, even though he states that they never did.
He doesn't bash the Bush administration as much as I thought he would, or any real political issues. He basically bashes American culture for allowing guns to flow so freely into the grasps of criminals and children.
Moore is a lifetime member of the NRA, but he thinks guns should be handled with more caution. America has the highest rate of weapon-related deaths in all the world, and as this documentary shows, Britain, Canada, and other closely related countries have the exact same films, videogames, weapons, and so on. Why is America's gun crime so high?
The film is centered on the Columbine shooting a few years back, when two students walked into Columbine high school and shot students, killing and injuring a large number of innocents. It was a wake up call for most of America, and Moore's real point of the documentary is to explore the reason America is so obsessed with guns.
From a critical standpoint, the documentary is well made, probably deserving of its Oscar. It's touching and funny, disturbing and outrageous. Sometimes it's a bit too politically correct -- the whole exploration of African-Americans getting arrested more than Caucasians on the television show "COPS" is not only incorrect but sort of a laughable attempt on Moore's part to gain the respect of black viewers. I've watched "COPS" before, and a lot of white guys get arrested -- I can think of many arrests off the top of my head. I don't think that it's a valid point at all. America's reported fear of blacks is not why there are more shootings.
Two survivors of the Columbine massacre accompany Moore towards the end of the film when he visits the Wal-Mart headquarters and requests that they stop selling 30-cent weapon ammunition -- the same ammunition bought by the Columbine shooters. Wal-Mart agrees, which is why you will no longer see gun ammo in Wal-Marts across the country.
When "Halloween" came out in 1978, the six-year-old killer, Michael Myers, seemed even more evil and scary because he murdered at such a young age. Nobody thought that there could be a child like that. But, in "Bowling for Columbine," we are informed that a six-year-old school kid shot another young girl of the same age in a school cafeteria one day -- by accident, or so they say. That's when the documentary starts to become a horror film as opposed to an informative film. And it's better for it, too.
It is our right as Americans to decide whether or not we should carry guns. I think the restrictions on letting guns fall into the wrong hands could be a bit more strict, but the criminals on the street will achieve weapons irregardless of whether or not Wal-Mart stops selling hunting rifles. In that sense, Moore's documentary is almost pointless. By the end, he never reveals why America is infatuated with guns. But his unresolved insight into why our nature is so influenced by violence is the highlight, and the remaining image of the little girl shot to death by a six-year-old boy will stay with you for a long, long time.
Another problem with documentaries is that they can be twisted around and edited into whatever the filmmaker wants -- such as Moore's interview with Charleston Heston at the end of the film, or Dick Clark's refusal to speak to Moore, and so on and so forth. We don't know the background story on these things and we don't know what else was said before Moore fiddled around with the footage and crafted it into what he wanted. Splice together images of Heston saying, "From my cold dead hands!" and anything can look bad.
"Bowling for Columbine" is a very good film, and though I do not respect Michael Moore in any way, even I have to admit that he's made a good -- if flawed -- documentary about violence in America. He handles the content with care -- the way it should be handled -- and it can be both hilarious and saddening at the same time. I don't agree with everything in this film, but some of the real facts are pretty haunting. It's definitely one to check out.
- John Ulmer
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