Michael Moore Turns It Up to 11 - Quick One

Fahrenheit 11/9 is the most recent offering from documentary filmmaker and outspoken political activist, Michael Moore, and a play on his probably biggest film to date, Fahrenheit 9/11. It can be seen as a spiritual successor of sorts as well, being heavily critical of our current Republican administration, just as the latter was critical of the then Republican administration, but make no mistake, this film has plenty of fingers to point at both sides of the political aisle.

I feel it necessary to mention that this film was much more restrained than I was expecting, considering the writer/director/producer and his very well documented views on, well, just about everything. That being said, this is very much a Michael Moore film, just less bias than I thought we'd get walking in. There are plenty of moments that do stretch comparisons to their hyperbolic limits before moving on to a separate topic, but if you can take something like this with a grain of salt, you might enjoy the cartoonish elements of some of the arguments he's making.

Michael Moore, has a tendency to infer motive with just about every accusation he makes, though he does a decent job of showing you the source of the inference. I must admit, a lot of the film seems fairly apt, but at the end of the day, the only one who knows the true motive behind an action is the one who carries it out. This film sacrifices that position in favor of its own agenda, but again, what were we expecting? This is a film by Michael Moore, after all.

I would be remiss not to include that, of course, this film is about much more than the 45th president and his administration. An awful lot of time is spent covering the teachers’ strike in West Virginia, the Flint water crisis, a full-scale military training drill in a lesser populated area of Flint — something I knew nothing about — and the school shooting in Parkland while following the efforts of the survivors. The most credit I can give this film is its unpolished portrayal of the DNC and the efforts of those in power on the left working against the apparent will of its constituents, and an especially disparaging take on how Obama ended his administration.

While this film makes many powerful points and has a lot to say about the current state of government, and the politics surrounding it, ultimately, the film jumps around topics so much that it leaves you feeling disjointed, providing you can sit through it without being triggered. There are a whole lot of triggers.

Fahrenheit 11/9 is flawed, but ambitious, and probably not a great way to escape the current climate, but it's a good watch though.

I give this film 11 9's out of Fahrenheit.

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