STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
Departing from the usual style he employs for his left wing documentaries, Michael Moore here takes us on a journey of his nationwide tour of America to target young 'slackers' at colleges and convention centres, and launch a campaign to get them to get out and vote to get George Bush out of office and John Kerry in at the 2004 Presidential Elections. Coming a year after the invasion of Iraq, Moore has plenty of ammunition to hand, dragging out bereaved families, embittered, disillusioned troops and popular, anti war celebrities such as REM. None of it worked, but targeting no less than all the key states needed for a Kerry victory (though this is spurious all along with the corruption he exposes from the Bush camp, especially since, once again, the Florida vote is needed here), Moore certainly met a lot of people and has a lot of experiences to share with his audience.
The people who loathe him have probably made him more famous than the people who love him, but all the same, Moore has got to be probably the most well known, mainstream documentary maker in the west at the moment. So it's odd that this one appears to have skipped a cinema release over here and the first I knew of it was in the bargain bin at Morrison's. As I said, it's notable for not employing the usual style Moore uses for these such films, absent are his voice overs and usual distinctive styles. Still, it's no less him and one of his films, with his liberal politics and persistive bear baiting all over it. His sarcastic sense of humour aimed at the hypocrisy and nonsense of the Republican Party, is in evidence again, but no less lightens matters.
It's a different style and approach, but it highlights Moore's driven passion and commitment to his cause. As ever, he gets a bit carried away with himself at times, but in his own way, he is a performer trying to showcase his art and, like any showman, he can't bear to be ignored. ***
