A Kinder, Gentler Michael Moore.
Written: Jul 08 '07 (Updated Jul 08 '07)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: relentless, thoughtful, smart and moving
Cons: not a tentpole flick, more of a whisper than a roar
The Bottom Line: If you see no other film this year, see this one.
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| bilavideo's Full Review: Sicko |
Michael Moore is larger than life - and I'm not just talking about his waistline. No single figure - apart from Dubya, Hillary or Paris Hilton - conjures up such an immediate love-hate relationship. Maybe that's why Fahrenheit 9/11 did so well at the box office. Even detractors wanted to see what Michael Moore was up to.
Sicko is a different kind of film. This is the kinder, gentler Michael Moore. It's not as funny as Fahrenheit 9/11 but it's also not as bombastic, either. Sicko is a relatively quiet film, with only one grand overture (the trip to Guantanamo) but it's the kind of film that gives meaning to the phrase "death from a thousand cuts."
The main character of this film is not Michael Moore, or even Dubya - whose complaint that too many OBGYNs don't feel free to "share their love with women" is an opening act. The main character is America's failing health system, a system that has more to do with money than with health, a system that employs more empty suits than doctors. Moore has a barrage of horror stories, like the one about the guy who cut off two finger tips - and then had to decide which one he wanted back: the forefinger for sixty grand, or the ring finger for only 12. My favorites are the woman whose insurance company wouldn't pay for her ambulance ride to the hospital, after a high-speed wreck - because she hadn't pre-approved it - and the woman who was told her brain tumor wasn't life-threatening.
In previous films, Moore would have jumped in front of the camera to play 60 Minutes with the bad guys. I loved how he did that in Roger & Me, and really loved it in Bowling for Columbine. But, as somebody clocked it, Moore lets 40 minutes go by before you see his face. It's his voice you hear in narration, but the tourguides in this film are the victims of the American healthcare system - as well as some of the guilty, who have come forward with heavy hearts and guilty consciences.
Waiting for the release of this film, I counted myself a skeptic. I love Michael Moore. I think he's a national treasure. But I had my doubts over whether anybody - in the middle of summer popcorn season - would want to go see a movie about how crappy the healthcare system is, especially when most of us are immortal until it's our turn at bat. Most of us are characters in a never-ending remake of Logan's Run, living in denial that the whole process of carrousel is a gigantic sham. Nobody wants to think about whether the insurance company will ditch them when they come down with lukemia or heart disease.
I was right.
Sicko's premiere, set for June 29th, was preceded by a punt. One week before, Michael Moore showed the film off to a limited audience - at a single theater. It still grossed $68, 969 - giving him a per/screen average almost nine times as high as Evan Almighty, the number one film of the weekend - but a far cry from the $24 million F9/11 took its opening weekend. I guess that's the difference between 1 theater and 868.
But even when Sicko got its real "opening weekend," the numbers suggested more of a whisper than a roar. While Weinstein and Company speak of its number-nine opening - at $4.5 million - as "the second highest opening ever for a documentary," the truth is, this is a stealth bomber not an aerial stunt plane at the state fair. Sicko doesn't dazzle so much as sooth. It's a quietly relentless attack on a healthcare system that's out of control. For much of the film, Michael Moore isn't shouting. He's whispering. It's just that what he's whispering makes a whole lot of sense.
This is not the kind of documentary you can use for entertainment at a frat party. There are very few "money shots" to speak of. Michael Moore has, instead, chosen an approach that's even more balsy than anything you saw in Fahrenheit 9/11. There, he only took aim at the President, Vice-President Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, John Ashcroft and a few powerless nobodies - like the House, the Senate, the U.S. Supreme Court, the Department of Homeland Security and all those Democrats who stood by while Bush won the 2000 election by way of appeal. This time, Michael Moore isn't going after the people you see on the evening news. He's going after its sponsors - all those HMOs, drug companies and their loyal lobbyists in Congress.
Michael Moore is going after the big boys.
This is where Sicko may have more effect on American politics than F9/11 ever could. There, Moore's greatest hope was to sway an election which, if successful, might have ended a war. But the system, as we know it, would have ground forward, business as usual. Here, Moore is attacking a beast bigger than both parties, which is why those who expected a partisan attack were left in confusion. This is a film that Republicans have embraced. Even Fox News has given it positive buzz, because Democrats don't have a monopoly on healthcare frustration.
When you see Michael Moore take aim at Hillary Clinton, who in '93 tried to bring about a national healthcare reform - because even Hillary has sold out - you know we're not in Kansas anymore. We might not even be in Flint.
This is an op-ed piece with a second act. After waving the bloody shirt of heartless insurance treachery, Moore starts shopping around. He takes a look at national health care in Canada, in France, and in the United Kingdom. He questions the stories we've been told about the horrors of "socialized medicine." Here, he plays man on the street as he interviews ordinary citizens in those countries, asking them how their healthcare system works. If you've seen Michael Moore at work, the guided tour is fairly predictable. What's not, however, is the stuff he digs up. Moore's best work is in getting ordinary people to speak to ordinary people, about things that matter most. The result is extraordinary.
This is the little film that will. Its tepid opening weekend - and its lack of partisan targets - make it an unfit subject of political grumbling. Moore has wisely figured that this is a subject bigger than the partisan divide. On the eve of its release, there were folks poised to jump on any factual errors, but Moore gave them little food for thought. Instead, he quietly dished up a meal that gets tastier with every bite. Released in half the theaters of F9/11, this film hung on to number nine (It didn't even play in my home town). Yet, on almost 300 more screens, the film (as of Friday, July 6) has slipped to number 10 but with the fourth highest per-screen average in the country. According to internet website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has garnered a 91% rating - meaning that it was liked by 91% of movie critics nationwide. Sicko will never be "the number-one film in America," but by next week, it will definitely be playing "at a theater near you."
Before year's end, this will be a film released on DVD, pay-per-view and premium cable. More people will watch it than ever watched F9/11. When they do, it will change the political debate. Both parties will have to respond to a growing public discussion about why America's healthcare system ranks just above Slovenia's. If you think it's funny to hear a mouse roar, wait till you see a lion whisper. It's not Uncle Tom's Cabin but Sicko will change history. Just you wait and see.
Recommended:
Yes
Movie Mood: None of the Above
Viewing Method: Other
Film Completeness: Looked complete to me.
Worst Part of this Film: Nothing
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Member: Bill Kilpatrick
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