Fahrenheit 9/11: B+

There is a moment in Fahrenheit 9/11 that surpasses all others as the one that defines best Michael Moore's argument agaisnt Bush as President. A woman travels to Washington D.C. for a job conference and while she is there she decides to visit the White House. Not so irregular for most Americans but for this woman, it is different: he son was killed in Iraq. As she stands there before the barriers blocking her from coming any closer, she dissolves on camera. But it isn't just her grief that has overwhelmed her, it is a feeling of nauseating helplessness that has struck her the final blow. This woman, once a "conservative Democrat", has had the rug swept out from under her both as a mother and as an American. Moore's point, and one he drives home with outraged precision, is that she isn't the only one. That moment propels Fahrenheit 9/11 to a level that a populist filmmaker such as Moore loves to go to: a place where he can connect to us, with as minimal "media interference" as possible, his outrage. It is a moment that transcends the film.

It is sad then that this documentary didn't have more of those connections. Instead it is a collection of a wide variety of data sources - ranging from Senators to amputees to the Washington Post - that help build a case for why George W. Bush may just be not only the worst American President in history, but also the most dangerous. The chief evidence at work here, and it is compelling stuff, is how the Saudi royals (who can count a number of the Bin Laden family amongst them) have an inordinate number of ties to the Bush family and all of its friends. Billions of dollars have been exchanged between the two most powerful Saudi Arabian families, those being the Royal Family and the Bin Ladens, and the Bushes. Business ventures that George W. kickstarted as a young capitalist were driven into the ground by his ineptness and then magically - magically! - they were saved by investments handled by a previous Air Guard colleague of W.'s with the money of...guess who? The Saudis! And around and around the carousal goes. Without even mentioning the many other dubious connections that top administrative officials have had with, and in some cases still do have, with Saudi Arabia, Moore brings to light the vast web painted with blood and oil by the White House.

And still his vast arsenal of evidence has yet to dry up. Though Moore's other charges may prove less scandalous (e.g. Saudi Arabia actually had a link to Ossama Bin Laden), the method in which they are all spliced together forms a disturbing portrait of a man being ruled by many different masters. That man is our current President and on the list of priorities, America is at the bottom while perhaps attacking Iraq to appease a certain other Middle Eastern country, regardless of authentic reasons, is at the top.

At two hours, the film still finds time to include thoughts on the 2000 election as well as how the Defense Branch is running itself (or rather, being run by capitalists out to make a quick buck, as seen in a chilling speech at a conference of high powered American coporations entitled "ReBuidling Iraq"). The overall effect of this information and running commentary - Moore has never seemed more sarcastic and more infuriated - is enticingly dark and yet as an argument it's a bit one-sided...and cheap. The documentary needed to be more immediate and righteous. For every moment of our Commander looking dumbstruck on the morning of 9/11 there are out-of-context shots of Bush holding press meetings while golfing. This is a piece of slickly made ferocity that doubles as humorous polemic cinema but it spends too much time being glib.

It needed more weeping mothers and a little less gadfly fat white man.