Bowling for Columbine: A-

If I am allowed to use a few "gun" adjectives with which to describe Michael Moore's incredibly outraged, powerfully lacerating documentary then I will start with a simple one: scattershot. The film, at once an expose and a thought piece, throws an immensely large quantity of information at you. Some of it has been challenged based on their factual accuracy, but the vast majority of them stand as evidence against a nation that fascinated with it's "righteous" nature to break into spasms of violence. And at more than two hours, there are many bits of evidence. But don't think that Moore (contrary to what some believe) is out to rage against guns. No, instead he is here to make a piece of cinema that gracefully splices together all sorts of media (from animation to stand-up) in order to prove a disturbing point: that America isn't hopped up on guns, it's hopped up on the paranoia that necesitates those firearms.

Shot in Moore's infamous, one-man guerrilla style, Bowling for Columbine has that rare opportunity to target no one and yet question everything. Though he uses Columbine as a jumping point (and displays some shocking footage of the killing spree that went on there), Moore is more interested in all forms of gun violence and the question that must then go after that: why are we as Americans so content to just shoot each other?

The answers don't come easily and that proves the film's strongest point. Without picking out specific persons of power to blame (be they the K-Mart CEO or Charleton Heston), the documentary leaps from one inflamatory point of investigation to another, all the while revealing in its - yes, scattershot - way that what sets us as a country apart (other than our incredibly high murder rate) is our addiction to fear.

Though it may grow muddier from time to time, Moore's movie is scathing and heartrending. His ambush-interviews of Dick Clark and Heston prove powerfully telling of our gun culture and his hopped-up frenzied use of montages - some that explore the various political assasinations carried out by our government, others that serve as reminders of our latent attitudes towards gun sales - is hilarious and insightful. Ultimately though, insight takes a back seat to the real force behind Columbine: honest curiousity at what makes such a bloodthirsty culture tick. With guns blazing, Michael Moore is out to find the answer, both as a documentarian and a humorist.

Well versed in rabble-rousing theatrics, Bowling for Columbine, surely proves controversial and provocative but its message, the power that it wields with such gangly force, lies in its simple, probing nature. In its final climactic moment - the interview with NRA President Charles Heston that ends in him storming off - Moore gets you on his wavelength. Those final minutes tear away all preconceived notions of Michael Moore as a politician masquerading as a filmmaker and result in a culminating moment of pure, unrelenting, humanity and sadness. Afterwards I couldn't help to think: how many of those moments have been created by bullets in a haze of very un-American terror?