Fahrenheit 9/11: documentary or crap?

As surprising as it may be to some of you, I'm not a fan of Michael Moore. I've read his books and seen his movies, so I know his work well. But despite my liberal viewpoints, I just find Moore to be an arrogant windbag who's badly in need of a permanent editor to follow him around and smack him every time he does something stupid. For instance, during his Oscar speech. Repeatedly during his Oscar speech.

I saw Moore's last movie, Bowling For Columbine, and while I found it funny and entertaining, I didn't feel it had a clear focus. He jumped around from subject to subject and didn't really come to a conclusion. Was he really sure it was fear that caused school shootings and other problems? What was the source of the fear, since all his assertions in the movie contradicted themselves? Since some of the facts in Bowling For Columbine were distorted, and the conclusion was fudged, the film left a sour taste in my mouth.

So when I heard about Fahrenheit 9/11 a few months ago, I was a little worried. I was afraid it would be another hack job that would worsen the image of liberals. In fact, I was so nervous about the film, a day before it came out I read all the negative reviews I could find, just so I'd know what I was in for. This negative review by Christopher Hitchens, the most convincing one, had me worried that Fahrenheit 9/11 would be ridiculously short-sighted and more suitable for the dregs of humanity at Moveon.org.

Amazingly, when I saw Fahrenheit 9/11, I found it was Hitchens and the other critics, not Moore, who had the short-sighted content.

After I left the theater Friday, I realized the negative reviews only discussed a few scenes of the movie. The film's main point, and most of the rest of the film, wasn't even discussed in the negative reviews. I felt like I had seen a completely different movie. Where was the other 90% of the movie's content in Hitchens' review? Why hadn't he discussed Moore's well-constructed points, like Bush spending 42% of his time at his ranch in the months leading up to 9/11 (according to the Washington Post), which led to Bush not even reading the FBI reports from July and August of 2001 that claimed al-Qaida members were learning how to fly at American flight schools, but didn't want to know how to land the planes? The Bush administration's negligence before the war, and false justifications for entering the war, were the main points of the movie, and Hitchens and the other nay-sayers conveniently skipped right over them.

Don't get me wrong, Fahrenheit 9/11 is far from perfect. Like usual, Moore could use a lot of editing. The film starts out with an in-depth look at the controversial 2000 election, which is a tired issue that Moore refuses to put to rest, despite the fact that the next election is coming in just under half a year. It made the movie appear at first to be just more liberal whining, and made pessimists like myself wary of wanting to watch the rest of the film. Moore includes a lot of fluff like that in his work. He seems to want to cram every viewpoint he has down people's throats all at once. However, he tones the fluff down quite a bit for the rest of this movie, and the difference was clear in the audience's reaction in the theater.

Fahrenheit 9/11 also has some questionable content. For instance, Hitchens noted in his article how Moore portrays Iraq as a sovereign nation before we attacked it. In the movie, Iraq is shown as a pleasant place with joyful weddings, happy kids flying kites, and a generally peaceful place before our ousting of Saddam. Common sense and piles of news reports from the last two decades show this to be false. Moore also says in the film that Iraq has never threatened America, or killed a single American. This, obviously, is also false.

Luckily, those scenes aren't part of the main point of the film. They're just a bit of Moore's unnecessary fluff. So why did Hitchens dwell on it so much, and not even mention the main point of the film? It wasn't until I read his article again that I understood the problem, which is summed up well by this Hitchins quote:

"But I offer this, to Moore and to his rapid response rabble. Any time, Michael my boy. Let's redo [our public debate]. Any show. Any place. Any platform. Let's see what you're made of."

Somebody has a bit of an axe to grind. I dislike Moore as much as many conservatives do, but even I know when you're writing a review of a film, you need to stick to the points made in the film, not go off on tangents and personal vendettas. Sadly, of the 21 paragraphs in Hitchens article, eight of them (40%) don't even discuss the movie, but instead discuss some unrelated flaw of Moore or assumption about what Moore would or wouldn't do if Bush had handled things differently. But the point of writing a criticism of a film isn't to discuss the director, it's to discuss the movie. Hitchens seems to believe showing Moore to be a schmuck is enough to prove his film is equally bad by association, but a schmuck can still make a good film if he has enough fact checkers, as proven by Moore with Fahrenheit 9/11.

(Just for reference, Russell Crowe is another example of a gigantic schmuck who has directed a good film. There are many other examples through film history as well.)

However, besides Moore's error of portraying Iraq as a peaceful place, the only valid or relevant point Hitchens really makes is that Iraq was negotiating secretly with North Korea to buy a missile system in 2003. Of course, he fails to mention that the missile system was not nuclear, and posed no harm to America. Sure, the missile system would have been illegal for Iraq to have, but it would not have qualified as anything close to a weapon of mass destruction, even by the Bush administration's standards.

But enough about Hitchens' review. If you want point-by-point criticisms of his article (which expose his horrendous amount of errors), see my full notes here.

To make a long column short, Moore claims that for Fahrenheit 9/11, he focused less on humor and more on facts. He was telling the truth. There are only those few instances in the movie where Moore goofed, and those parts had no effect on the main point. So I encourage others to see this film, and by all means, come back and post your viewpoint here. The more discussion we have, the more worthwhile our movie admissions will be, because after all, discussion is the point of a political film.

Rate column 5 - Great 4 - Good 3 - Average 2 - Poor 1 - Awful

Reader Comments

page:   1 2 3

Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm   hottie_10@hotmail.com      Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm        Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm        Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm        Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm        Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm   martino.jengen.no      Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm        Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm   none      Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm        Dec 31, 1969 • 4:00pm

page:   1 2 3