Fahrenheit 9/11 Review
by Andy Keast (arthistoryguy AT aol DOT com)July 7th, 2004
Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004): *** out of ****
Written and directed by Michael Moore. Featuring Michael Moore, George W. Bush, John Ashcroft, Dick Cheney, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Colin Powell, Condolezza Rice and Donald Rumsfield.
by Andy Keast
"Fahrenheit 9/11" is a manifesto of how Michael Moore feels about the administration of George W. Bush, and that his presidency led to an
unjustified
war with Iraq. The film accomplishes precisely what it sets out to do, to rouse you up about what he sees as an irresponsible and incompetent leader. But, believe it or not, his film is more about a presentation of facts, through
one-sided, than about making a splash. I'm not a Democrat but I am a liberal, and I'm persuaded personally by a great deal of what Moore says here. This is a topic that is *so* divisive and *so* infuriating to so many that it's impossible to feel indifferently. I've always believed that if one is fearful of being offensive, than the First Amendment is useless, so I'm giving the film
high marks not for the content or politics but for it's construction, as an unapologetic exercise of free speech. Controversy is good.
There's no proof that the Bush-bin Laden connection had anything to do with September 11th, though Moore's film supplies a great amount of circumstantial evidence that Bush used the attack as a perfunctory reason to commit our own act of terror, the invasion of Iraq. This was without permission from the U.N.
Security Council, and without any proof of WMDs or of a connection between Hussein and al-Qaida. Moore gives us his view on the unconstitutional Patriot Act, and there's a funny interview with Michigan Representative John Conyers, who openly admits that most bills that are signed by the legislature are obviously never read.
"Fahrenheit 9/11" could have benefited from similar scenes. I admire Moore's films the same way I admire, say, "The Simpsons." He's a satirist who laughs at what scares him. The idea of nuclear war scares the hell out of me, however
"Dr. Strangelove" makes it look like morbid fun. The scenes with Moore following members of Congress around Washington, trying to get them to sign up their children to join the military, are more tragicomedy than comedy. While doing press for the film, Moore made it no secret that the film was manipulative and one-sided. This isn't so much a documentary but a document, and a great deal of what he shows rings true: war is extremely profitable, and the U.S. economic structure has been engineered so that it will always depend on the lower class to carry it's war powers. Despite criticisms that Moore is unpatriotic and a traitor, I find him very patriotic in his questioning of his leader. This is his most focused work since "Roger and Me."
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