Michael Moore’s documentary Where To Invade Next has more smoke than fire
REVIEW: There is still a fire in American rabblerouser Michael Moore’s belly, but there is more smoke than actual flames in his latest work.
Leigh Paatsch
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WHERE TO INVADE NEXT (M)
Director: Michael Moore (Capitalism: A Love Story)
Starring: Michael Moore.
Rating: 2.5
The grass is always greener on all other sides
If we’re just talking box-office receipts and public notoriety, then American rabblerouser Michael Moore (Fahrenheit 9/11, Bowling for Columbine) can lay claim to being the most successful documentary filmmaker of all-time.
However, he has never been up there with the best. Given the choice, Michael Moore would rather score easy points than prove a hard point.
While there is still a fire in Moore’s belly in what is now the closing phase of his career, there is more smoke than actual flames in his latest work.
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A policy travelogue posing as a political tract, Where to Invade Next sees Moore visiting several (mainly European) countries where he believes they are getting “it” right.
“It” being the stuff that America is forever getting wrong.
We learn that Finland developed the best education system in the world once they banned all homework. American kids are given more homework each year, and they’re still dumb as bricks.
In Italy, generous paid leave (around eight weeks a year!) for regular employees has not hurt productivity a bit. In America, fewer holidays still results in lesser output.
Norway’s ‘luxury’ jail system has actually slashed the reoffending rate by 80 per cent. America’s jails will have the ‘No Reservations’ light switched on until the end of time.
France’s school cafeteria menus would be the envy of most restaurants elsewhere. America’s school cafeterias make a bug-ridden burger joint look like a place of posh nosh.
Sensing a thematic trend here?
It’s all nice-to-know stuff, rather than must-know intel. Moore’s famously slapdash interviewing style could use an update, too.
WHERE TO INVADE NEXT IS RELEASED ON THURSDAY APRIL 7
Originally published as Michael Moore’s documentary Where To Invade Next has more smoke than fire
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