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A second feature length foray into the dark underbelly of America for Moore (following Roger & Me),
and its obvious from the off America's answer to Mark Thomas hasn't lost any of his bullish wit,
probing insight or courage in asking the questions nobody wants to answer.
What legitimizes Moore from other fierce critics of Americana is that he IS your typical American
(or rather how we like to view the average yank). Overweight, unshaven, scruffy hair tucked under a baseball
cap & generally in need of a Trinny & Susannah makeover, Moore could blend effortlessly
into any mall & go unnoticed. More importantly, he's a lifelong member of the NRA, comes from the same
small town background (& state) as the Omaha bombing suspects & is as fiercest a patriot as
you'll find which puts him in a far better position than most to speak out about Amerika. There's no
political baggage, his agenda is not based on personal profit or gain & Moore's patriotism isn't expressed
as the usual small-minded xenophobia that has made it such a
dirty word. Moore is just a regular joe with an excess of wit & intelligence who has looked around
& seen through the corporate consumer happy happy pretense & begs an answer: just what the hell is
going on here? Shining his light in the dark corners of American (& therefore, eventually, our) society
& demanding to know what happened? How did a country (& a world) based on freedom & equality &
love get this way and why?
Moore bares the American soul as he goes in search of the country's fascination with firearms &
discovers one thing for certain: there's alot of fruitcakes out there. But how? And why?
What makes a teenager with several weeks of school left before he finishes forever go on a killing spree
& take his own life? How is it that Canadians live a few miles away & don't exist in the same frantic
state of fear that American's do? To the point where they don't even lock their doors!? Why does
everyone feel the need to carry a gun? Does Moses wear a rug? With the usual mixture of humour, biting
satire, direct action & plain annoyance to his subjects Moore tries to pin down the social &
political factors at work and uncovers a media saturated with crime & expounding the
ideology of fear & consumerism; an organisation campaigning for gun freedom (coincidently founded
the same year the KKK was outlawed) in towns that have recently suffered school shooting tragedies;
a society refusing to bear any responsibility for
blame, desperate to find a scapegoat (cue Marilyn Manson) & a bunch of backwoods lunatics building
bombs, selling drugs & killing each other cos they've lost all hope...
Perhaps the boldest statement the film makes is highlighting the hypocrisy & double standards of US
politics since WW2 in the mainstream arena. It draws direct links between neo-colonialist oppression &
(the resulting) terrorist atrocites that have shocked the US. Most importantly, Moore stands up &
says that the World Trade Center attacks were a direct result of this interventionism. Something
many have thought but few dared say since that chilling day.
The sheer magnitiude of threads that form a sufficient answer to a country's malaise is beyond the
films 2hr+ scope. Rather it succeeds in raising more questions than it provides answers to, hinting
that this is not just an open & shut case or a an easily resolvable issue but something that
continues to grow, mutate & thrive if we don't come to terms with it.
Moore's film is as much a questioning of his nation & its ideology as a defence or peculiar spotlight
on it. He is crying out for people to look at themselves & question why? How am I culpable? Where do
I fit into this mess? Am I a part of the problem? What can I do to be a part of the solution? Often
funny, frustrating, frightening & tragic, it is the filmaker's compassion that triumphs. It's
been 15 years since Roger & Me but the question remains the same: something isn't right here,
isn't it time we started to put it right?
Moore proves that pariotism & compassion are not necessarily mutually exclusive. You can own a gun &
not be a nutcase. You can be an American & smart. And if you try hard enough & persevere long enough,
you can make a difference...
RATING: (c)Limer 2002
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Bowling for Columbine (Cinema: November 2002)
