Movie Reviews
Now, granted, this is a near-blistering attack on the Bush administration, Bush family, and President Bush himself. But before I begin to judge and make any of you liberals angry, I’ll tell you how I’m going to rate this. When I review documentaries, I base my decision on how persuasive the film is, how important it is, and how well it backs up its points using whole truths. I review documentaries like they are teachers and how well they teach.
Also, knowing my moral views against that of Michael Moore, I will use that to my advantage as well.
This is a film that slants the truth to a point that I could no longer take it seriously. I read an article in which Moore defends himself by saying that he only uses what he perceives to be the truth. Well there’s a difference between a perception of the truth and a lie.
About the first half of “9/11” deals with Bush’s performance during the eight months prior to the attacks on our country. He uses conveniently spliced footage of Bush and his cabinet to make him look like, well, a total idiot. While many of you may agree with that conclusion, I can only guess you base your beliefs on either the fact that George Bush has trouble pronouncing difficult words or you just can’t stand his decision to send troops to Iraq. Michael Moore uses both of those to jumble hordes of sound bites together to make Bush look incompetent, ill tempered, contradictory, and altogether stupid.
As a civilian, I have no way of getting my innocent little hands on important documents (etc.) like Moore does. Therefore, almost every accusation he makes in the beginning hour, I can neither back up nor prove wrong. However, being the conservative I am, I can only pray that it’s all false as it all sounds absurd. But, my republican friends, there is hope, for I recognize sleaze when I see it.
The war in Iraq becomes the main topic of the last half of the film. Moore is emphatic on the side of the finding of no weapons of mass destruction in that country. He only furthers his cause by exploiting the death of the son of a woman who cannot stand Bush. She blames his death on Bush. She screams “Why him! He hadn’t done anything wrong!” Okay, let’s pause right here. By saying that, we can all agree that she thinks wrongdoers should be punished. Saddam Hussein was a wrongdoer, who is now in jail: one outcome of that very war which her son died to win.
In the moments before the woman says this, she was describing the moments when she heard of her son’s death and said she needed Jesus to comfort her (not to misquote, I just can’t remember exactly what she said). From that we can accurately judge that she is either Catholic or some denomination of Christian. If she believes the Bible, she will know that a higher being let her son die for a purpose, and that blaming it on Bush is ludicrous. Why your son, ma’am? I honestly don’t know, but it was for a just reason. All I do know is that he died for a noble reason. If she wants to believe her son died in vain...she has every right to. But I don’t think it will ease her suffering.
Another thing that struck me as “funny” was how Moore used the views of one to epitomize the views of many. Such was the case with the woman (above), and also with the group of soldiers he interviewed. What comes across (which, I’m sure, is what Moore wanted) is that all of our men and women in uniform hate it in Iraq. They believe they’re there for no good reason. And, apparently, they listen to rock music to heighten the adrenaline rush they feel when they go into combat. Moore even goes so far as to show Iraq as being a peaceful, joyous, and wonderful place under the Hussein regime. (Little kids fly kites along the river bank, couples get married, etc.) It all crumbles when the horrid Americans intervene.
Well the fact is that Saddam Hussein was a disgusting and cruel dictator who not only gassed his own people, but was responsible for genocide. This regime would have never stopped its reign, and they were terrorists regardless of whether they had ties to Al Qaeda or September 11. If it were up to people like Michael Moore, Hussein would still be in power, plotting God knows what. Okay, fine, we didn’t find WMDs. It’s not even been two years and Iraq is a rather large country. Even if they don’t find any, we know he had them...he used them on his own people.
I once watched a season of Moore’s television series called “The Awful Truth”. In all of the episodes he “helped” people who were being tyrannized usually by some large company. In one episode he argued for gay rights. He went on to gather a group of homosexuals and lesbians to take on a road trip to states where it was illegal for gays to get married, and where it was illegal to commit sodomy. He drove a bus which he deemed the “Sodomobile” and had the gays break the law by having gay sex in those states. In the process he found a minister who was a radical gay hater and who held up signs that said things like “God Hates Fags!” While I certainly don’t agree with the way the minister “handled” the situation, Moore made church goers in general look horrible. It also opened my eyes to Moore’s idiocy. By going against the Bible and supporting gay marriage/rights, he has no right to use scenes in his documentary where people are praying after September 11 for sympathy. He has no right.
Now, we can look at Michael Moore two different ways. Either he truly thinks he’s a crusader for America or he’s just an anarchist. If it’s the former, then he’s oblivious to his own stupidity. However, if it’s the latter, he knows exactly what he’s doing and only wants to cause trouble by making people like me angry. Either way, I could barely stand to watch all two scrutinizing hours of “Fahrenheit 9/11” and personally would rather watch Robert McNamara ramble on in “The Fog of War” mainly because that film was more interesting. And while this is a very well made documentary, Moore never ceases to disgust me. * (Based on Filmmaking Alone: *** ˝)