Michael Moore's take on what happened to the United States after September 11; and how the Bush Administration used the tragic event to push its agenda. [TRAILER]

STEVEN SNYDER'S REVIEW

Why has America not seen the hundreds upon hundreds of caskets being shipped home from Iraq? Why have we not seen President Bush criticized more for his protest of a September 11 commission, and his subsequent refusal to individually testify before it? Why have we not seen the footage of Bush on the morning of 9/11, sitting idly in a school for seven minutes as thousands of Americans were dying in New York City?

We haven't seen such things because no one has had the guts to speak up, and for this reason alone we need Michael Moore, now more than ever. "Fahrenheit 9/11" is not a brilliant film, but it is a passionate work overflowing with anger and unease. It is constructed with an exhaustive argument, employing impressive footage and eyebrow-raising evidence. For the first time in years I have faith that one person can still make a difference in this world, and that despite the oppressive power of the U.S. government and the deceptions perpetrated on the American people, a liberating sense of debate and anger can still arise from the depths of our ambivalent minds.

I must put this piece in perspective. I am looking at the clock. It's 2:44 in the morning. I have just returned home from a midnight screening of "9/11" in the suburbs, in a theater packed with teenagers who clearly had nothing better to do. I listened to them gasp during the screening. I heard them, as well as older patrons, talking on their way out of the theater. I heard the hooting and the applause as the credits began to roll. It made a mark and incited a reaction.

In a world of passive entertainment, this alone is amazing.

Its willingness to enrage and incite is why we NEED this film. The media has lost its teeth. Politicians are no longer being held accountable by opposing parties. Broken promises and lies are brushed aside as words such as "unpatriotic," "terrorist" and "alert levels" drown them out.

Moore reminds us of the weapons of mass destruction, of the forgotten Afghanistan and, more importantly than anything else, attaches faces to the names that we no longer even remember to look for - the names of the dead being shipped home secretly in coffins from Iraq (the number now above 1,000).

Those who want to have a field day picking apart "9/11's" facts will not be disappointed. Many of Moore's arguments are circumstantial and circumspect, and he mixes many images, personalities and events for dramatic effect that will likely not hold up to scrutiny. The film starts with the 2000 election, and adds one more little-known piece to this historical puzzle - the final act of Congress in the election process, when the Senate convenes and when objections to the election can be raised. However, protesting members of the House of Representatives cannot find a single needed senator to sign their objections, and we watch in amazement as Al Gore dismisses them, gavels them down, and the election is handed to Bush without so much a peep of objection from our elected representatives.

The film then shifts to the day of September 11, to Bush's reaction (or non-reaction) on the day of, and the several curious relationships and affiliations in the President's life that still mire both the event itself and the ensuing American response. Moore looks at Bush's business associates, his father's business associates, the Bin Laden family of Saudi Arabia, the various corporations that benefited from the war on Iraq and the increasing limitations on personal freedom made possible by a scared public, preoccupied with the "war on terror."

Moore does not tie together any substantive arguments here. He seems instead to be creating an overarching aura of suspicion. There are dozens of bizarre relationships in the film, including disturbing interactions between the Bush family and the Bin Ladens. Moore does not pretend to know all the answers, but rather serves as the cynical messenger.

Personally, I did not take these asides as Moore’s complete guide to Bush's sordid past, but rather as a guide to the questions that have never been asked and the relationships that have never been challenged. Why is this coming out in a film, and not in a newspaper? Why has no one, anywhere, challenged the President with these pointed questions? How can any Washington reporter honestly claim that this is not newsworthy, surprising information? Granted, some facts have emerged in the news in the years since. Two years after the attacks, in 2003, it was finally revealed that the Bin Ladens were allowed to fly out of this country while all other air traffic was grounded. But Moore's revelations go far beyond the Bin Ladens and far beyond the scope of what the media has uncovered in the years since.

Bush is fair game in every single second of this film. Early on, Moore shows a clip in which Bush tells Moore to do some real work. And for nearly two hours, Moore lets him have it with both barrels blazing. From verbal slip-ups to a lackadaisical attitude towards the office to a shrewd use of buzz words and catch phrases to reduce foreign affairs into jingoistic sound bites, Bush is lambasted time and time and time again. In fact, Moore often uses these digs to break up the film's more fact-heavy and slow-moving sections. Just when we start to feel a sense of overload, Moore gives us a break with another hilariously depressing Bush blooper. One must admit that Bush has given people like Moore an encyclopedia's-worth of material.

The most potent moments of the film, however, concern Iraq. Clearly linking September 11 to a culture overrun with fear, the President is shown as a man determined to go into Iraq not only to fulfill a prior agenda but also to pacify the military-industrial complex and this country's economic interests. More importantly, Moore looks at who we're sending over there to fight, where these innocent souls come from, and gives us just an inkling of the lost lives that are now on the President's hands. He finds the sound bites concerning WMD's and Saddam Hussein that I defended last year in a number of columns that I wrote on the President's behalf. And he contrasts those comments with others from the same administration at different times - highlighting contradictions from the very same mouths that were "sure" the Iraqi weapons and the terrorist connections existed that now, as it turns out, do not.

Never is this film more haunting than when we watch a mother morph from a patriotic lover of her son overseas and the military to a heartbroken, distraught and furious mother who knows deep down that he died in vain. She reads his last letter home, through tears, and remembers both his anger with the war and his fear of being stationed in Iraq. And as the death toll continues to skyrocket, Moore goes back to that aircraft carrier, over a year ago, when Bush proclaimed, "mission accomplished" in Iraq.

Watching this, and remembering this sordid period in American history, one cannot help but get angry. Really, we start to adopt Moore’s mindset, wanting to know just what the hell is going on and why more people aren't mad about it. Where has the plan been in post-war Iraq? How many more soldiers must die before there is a public outcry? How can Bush make links to Saddam Hussein that Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism czar, even says were not there? Why has the media not called him out on the absent WMD that he told the world were there. How can he continue to allow caskets to come home without answering for the actions of a nation that takes their lives for granted?

Me, get political? You bet. Disagree? Good. Let's debate, let's lay into each other and somehow, in our debating and arguing and researching, find the truth. Put down the damn Whopper and turn off that damn TV. Pick up a newspaper. Dig on the Internet. Go back to late 2001 and read the Patriot Act, which even the Congress people interviewed by Moore admit they haven't read. Realize, like I do, that the government can now arrest you without reason, hold you indefinitely and never tell your friends or loved ones why you are in custody. It's interesting that here we see another media blunder - a missed opportunity to inform the public of what oppressive legislation is being enacted in their name.

The artistic merits of this film are dubious. It does not so much tread the line between documentary and fiction so much as mash that line into an unrecognizable blur. There is rock music here, along with sound bites, stock footage, original footage and factual evidence. Moore's one flaw is mispacing the film early on, making the film's first few minutes almost purely comedic. This reduces the impact of the facts and figures that start to fly later. Bracing the audience for this more substantive approach would have been wiser.

And Moore, despite his occasionally overbearing attacks on the President, does present an intellectual argument here. It is a film of people, places, relationships and controversies. Much like "Bowling For Columbine," I think he realizes that answers do not exist for most of his questions, but that fragments of the truth are lying around for anyone to find.

Here I sit, wide awake at now 3:06. This film affected me, and it continues to resonate. I am becoming more upset as I am reminded of the issues that have gradually faded from my radar over the last few months. I am more emboldened to look critically at what's occurring and to challenge what this administration says as the unassailable truth. I want to pay a moment's respect to those soldiers who have sacrificed so much for us. Looking at the list at this instant, more than 850 soldiers have died in Iraq. The last three names are Charles Kaiser from Cleveland, Chris Cash from North Carolina and Patrick R. McCaffrey Sr. from California.

What of the film's controversy? Well, I think for most adults it will not sway opinion dramatically. The ones it WILL affect are those who are 17-25. They are the voters, or soon-to-be-voters with friends overseas, who may be going overseas themselves or have already lost someone to the conflict. They do not see the war as some campaign issue, or as an abstract extension of the conspicuous "war on terror." They see the real-world results and consequences and are more prone to ask the question, why: Why Iraq, why now, and why have 800 had to die for one man's politics?

The ending sequence of "9/11" is what seals the deal for me. Throwing up his hands, Moore quotes Orwell, and talks about how, when you come right down to it, all of these relationships and coincidences are not noteworthy individually, but collectively. This war is not about Saddam or terror. It is about keeping the masses in a permanent state of fear, in perpetuating this conflict for various political and economic industries and in keeping the hierarchy of this country just the way it should be.

Right or wrong, isn't this a debate we should be having? That we must have? That we must have now, before the madness escalates?

Should it have won Cannes? Gosh, I don't know. I'm giving this film two ratings - one for its craft, and one for its place as a movie today. I don't think this is unreasonable. This is a work that transcends art as a present-day fusion of film and politics. It exists as it exists today, and will be far different later. The Cannes jury must have seen it my way, because it does not deserve to win on artistic merits alone. But I don't see this as a bad thing. The more people see "9/11," and the more they talk, the more it will emerge as a work that was needed to reawaken the inquisitive minds that have been lulled to sleep through fear and ignorance.

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DAVID JOHNSON'S REVIEW

"The citizen of Oceania is not allowed to know anything of the tenets of the other two philosophies, but he is taught to execrate them as barbarous outrages upon morality and common sense. Actually, the three philosophies are barely distinguishable…"

Perhaps Michael Moore should have ended his movie with this quote from George Orwell instead. Or rather, he should never have made a movie that fit this quote so well, and should instead have made the film that did fit the quote he ends "9/11" with.

Confusing? I suppose so. But I will try to explain my somewhat oddly construed take on this film.
In many ways, “Fahrenheit 9/11” shows so much promise that it’s sickening how little it delivers. Moore seems to have made a conscious effort to at least make sure that when he does manipulate the facts this time around, he’ll let his interviewees do so instead of him. And he’s laid off some of the quick and fast – but meaningless – factoid sharing that plagued Bowling for Columbine.

Little did Moore realize what a crutch these devices where for him. Without them, he’s lost in a sea of misunderstanding and lack of focus. The film wanders in and out of its points never really finding a place of it’s own.

It’s a lot like the Bush administration. Without any coherent thought process behind his film it’s just scare tactics and diversions.

However, instead of constantly confusing the public with threats of terrorism, Moore includes comical bits of Bush playing golf (although admittedly, it seems like the same 30 seconds of footage over and over again) and getting ready for press conferences. Instead of juxtaposing the thousands of dying Iraqi civilians with anything meaningful, we are jerked away towards another music montage so we don’t have to feel bad for too long.

Perhaps I could forgive Moore, if this film wasn’t taking valuable time from other documentaries that so brilliantly make a cohesive point. He gets fame, fortune and millions of dollars (none of which as far as I can tell, he donates to the causes he claims to so passionately believe in) just as films like “Control Room” have completely slipped in oblivion.

There is an interesting thread in “Fahrenheit 9/11” though. It’s the thread that Moore alludes to at the end of the film and it’s the thread Moore should have concentrated on. He spends a short time in the film talking to some members of the community in Flint Michigan. He follows a couple of army recruiters around and watches some war mothers crying. But more importantly, he starts to tie together a coherent thread.

But this thread falls apart, when Moore once again wades into the vast right wing conspiracy that is using Saudi oil money to influence politics and steal Iraqi oil. And of course, no Michael Moore film could be complete without a pointless and utterly meaningless egotistical high profile gesture. In Bowling for Columbine it was placing the photo of the dead boy outside the President of the NRA’s house. In “Fahrenheit 9/11” it’s asking senators if they will enroll their children in the Military.

The sad fact of the matter is that this stuff works. Moore has gotten more press coverage for his film, than the actual events themselves. People have packed theatres to see his film, and cheered when the film ends. It’s utterly endemic of our “quick-fix, one- hour photo, instant oatmeal society.”

The independent press and portions of the mainstream press have been screaming it for years. Al Jazeera has been reporting it since before the war began, but Michael Moore has strung it all together with anecdotal Bush-isms and added appropriate commentary to indicate the desired emotional state and suddenly he’s a hero. Everyone cheers him for having the guts to tell the truth, but in my mind all he has the guts to do is make millions off of the truths others have died to bring you.

This is a film review though, Right? Politics shouldn’t play that significant a role into a film.
So what, am I supposed to criticize how terribly self-aware the film is? How manipulative the film is in its devices and how it shows a complete lack of respect for its audience? Should I tell you how utterly moronic and childish the soundtrack is?

The truth is you won’t care. Furthermore I contend that nothing I have said will have any impact on you. You’ll see “Fahrenheit 9/11” and talk about it on the car ride home. Maybe you’ll even send Kerry $10 to support the fight against President Bush.

But I doubt you’ll start reading Al Jazeera on a regular basis. And when the next crackpot President decides to invade the next country you’ll be duped right along with everyone else.
And Moore will be there, sitting in his upscale apartment in Manhattan waiting to take credit just when public opinion starts to turn against the war. You’ll soak up his emotional argument, cheer and gladly turn over your hard earned money to further the great divide between rich and poor.

You wanna prove me wrong Michael? Do the honorable thing: Take all the money you and the Weinsteins are making on this film and start a PAC. I dare you! Think of the number of college scholarships you could give to people in Flint with the 23.9 million the film made opening weekend.

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