Fahrenheit 9/11 Review
by Karina Montgomery (karina AT cinerina DOT com)June 29th, 2004
Fahrenheit 9/11
Matinee with Snacks
As my friend and I said simultaneously upon leaving the theatre, Michael Moore is preaching to the choir. No one who should see this film will, and in my mind that seems to imply that they have something to fear. Thanks to our reliance on BBC for our news, my friends and I saw very little in this film that we did not already know. The film is full of the kind of information that we pull out to justify our position when in debate with our conservative friends. The fact is, conservatives have been decrying this movie as lies and biased spin and whatever since they heard it was being made, without having seen it. They (meaning conservatives we know) have also stated a flat refusal to see it.
I say to you folks who assume this film is full of lies: Go see it. Tell me what's untrue. Tell me how the documented facts (which by and large I knew already before Michael Moore strung them together so eloquently) do not make the current administration look bad. If it is all lies, why won't you go see it? If the Bush Administration was on the up and up all along, why have they felt the need to be so deceptive? It's like the picketers of Last Temptation of Christ - why don't you get informed before you start slinging mud?
It's no secret that this entire country is polarized right now - the Great Unifier has definitely dropped the ball on that unification plan, regardless of your other political feelings. The film is one made by someone who agrees with my gut reaction to the transparent used car salesman pandering to his constituents, and who presents very credible evidence to support it. I know there is another side to every tale. For every Iraq-stationed soldier Moore shows expressing their distaste for what they are doing over there, he also shows soldiers who just want to kick some ass. Just like when cooler minds were trying to say "how about some proof before you go into Iraq?" this administration can't back up their assertions. This film backs up the other side.
Moore's general beef is with people who hold the power, whether fiscal (GM in Roger and Me), moral (gun lobbyists in Bowling for Columbine), or both (George W. Bush in Fahrenheit 9/11), when those people do not do what is right but rather protect their (mostly cash and fiduciary) interests with full knowledge of the damage they do and with no apparent concern for who gets hurt. Time and time again, on TV Nation, The Awful Truth, and in his movies, Moore just wants to say, "See the big bad man slapping the little child? Something must be done!" And, whether or not you agree with his assessment that the man is bad, no one can deny that that child has been slapped. But it's too easy for his detractors to make sport of him - they don't see his movies.
Moore is always vilified for editing bias into his films. Fahrenheit had the least Moore presence of any of his films. Of course he does a man on the street stunt, with comic results. Of course he has one inexplicable confrontation with an authority figure while he is shooting. But this is not the Charleton Heston interview. This is a lot of footage that Moore didn't even take himself - he found it, through normal channels, much as you or I could do (if we Tivoed all the news obsessively). He put it together with his trademark skill and kept himself way off camera and off mike most of the film. Even his detractors agree that he is masterful at painting a picture with his resources. I grant, the narrative conjecture on the thoughts of Bush on the morning of 9/11/01 is Moore thinking out loud to make us think, but overall, this movie is a big long chronological list of events which have led us to this quagmire of polarization we are currently enjoying.
The two best moments in the film for me and for others with whom I have spoken were the use of the Greatest American Hero theme, and the manner in which Moore, in the course of his chronology, handled portraying the actual event of 9/11. I was grateful to have someone (an interviewee) verbalize the confusion people have about what war protestors are protesting - and for you readers who refuse to see the movie, of course it not protesting the troops, it is protesting the war. What is wrong with people that they would think that "No War" means "the troops are bastards and we hate them?" If that's left over from the Boomers' Vietnam experience, give the rest of us some credit, willya? War protestors don't want another tragedy like Vietnam; they support the troops by hoping for a better way. Support your argument, whatever side you are on - go see Fahrenheit 9/11.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
These reviews (c) 2004 Karina Montgomery. Please feel free to forward but credit the reviewer in the text. Thanks. You can check out previous reviews at:
http://www.cinerina.com and http://ofcs.rottentomatoes.com - the Online Film Critics Society http://www.hsbr.net/reviews/karina/listing.hsbr - Hollywood Stock Exchange Brokerage Resource
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
