Fahrenheit 11/9 focuses on school shootings and the Flint water crisis – and is important for future voters to watch
There’s a lot of grandstanding - and sometimes the agenda is hammered home too much, but it’s still relatively easily to disseminate the slight whiff of propaganda and stunts Moore pushes and see the bare facts for what they are
NO-ONE does angry quite like Michael Moore.
He is still largely preaching to the converted, but is whip-smart and confident enough to know that if the message somehow bleeds through, it’ll have been worth it.
Bookended by Trump (the film begins with the building of his waxwork, then the telling of how this whole mess began because NBC paid Gwen Stefani more than him and ends with a speech of his being mouthed by Adolf Hitler) it’s depressing, angry, informative and incredibly upsetting in places - but also funny, uplifting and powerful in others.
The bulk of the film focuses on two events in modern America - the Flint water crisis in Michigan - and of course, the school shootings. No-one in authority comes out of it looking good - including Obama and even Moore himself (his appearance on Roseanne with Trump was arse-kiddingly reverential).
Told through interviews with victims of both tragedies, passion runs high throughout - with only Moore’s withering put downs and stunts there to break what would otherwise be too heavy to handle.
The corruption, the disregard for humanity (Flint’s governor deciding to reverse the supply of poisonous water for clean, but only for the General Motors factory - it was corroding the metal - and leaving the residents to die of Legionnaire’s disease is eye-popping).
We see teachers striking rather than being forced to wear fit-bits in order to receive health insurance - the seemingly criminal rigging of Bernie Sanders’ to the happily ineffectual Democratic Party - we see a lot wrong in the world - but the film also offers plenty of hope in their form of young campaigners not standing for it.
A group of school kids getting an unopposed republican governor to stand down in just 24 hours by simply offering an alternative is a welcome tonic and extremely rabble rousing.
There’s a lot of grandstanding - and sometimes the agenda is hammered home too much, but it’s still relatively easily to disseminate the slight whiff of propaganda and stunts Moore pushes and see the bare facts for what they are - just as deeply troubling as ever. This is an important film for future voters worldwide. Just hope they watch.