Fahrenheit 911
(2004)
review by Big McLargehuge

I’ve purposely chosen not to give this film an overall skull rating because Fahrenheit 9-11 isn’t a film, or a documentary, but an Op/Ed piece. And, to attempt to rate someone’s opinion, to me, somehow diminishes the overall point of the work.

Fahrenheit 9-11 opens with the November celebration of Gore’s win in the general election, specifically, with his victory celebration. So begins the first of Moore’s points-to-ponder, that is, namely, that the campaign apparatus of G.W. Bush circumvented the electoral process to rob, not only Al Gore, but the American people of their duly chosen President.

His evidence is well put together, namely that the man who decided to announce that Bush had won Florida (irrespective of every other broadcast network’s calling the Florida results for Gore) on Fox News was G.W.’s first cousin, that the woman in charge of overseeing the recount, Katherine Harris, was Bush’s Florida campaign manager, that Governor Jeb Bush and Harris colluded to remove several tens of thousands of black voters from the rolls effectively disenfranchising 8% of the Florida electorate, paying campaign workers to stage a near riot in the counting places, and on the Supreme Court of the US who effectively installed the current US presidents without regard to constitutional election law.

That’s a pretty hefty indictment for the first five minutes of a 90-minute movie, but it doesn’t stop there. Fahrenheit 9-11 follows the Bush presidency from installation to “yesterday”, tracks his family relationship with the Saudi Royal and Bin Laden families from their investments in all of the younger Bush’s business ventures (Arbusto Oil drilling, and Harken Energy) right through talks with the current administration’s favorite defense contractors The Carlyle Group and Halliburton.

Moore, who hasn’t made a secret of his political leanings, doesn’t like G.W. Bush, the Bush, family, or the Saudi royalty, and uses the attacks on September 11th 2001 as his galvanizing point to rally America’s Democrats, Centrist Republicans, and undecideds to the cause of ousting Bush and his cadre of criminals from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Moore then carefully connects the dots from the Saudi Royal Family to the 9-11 incident to Bush’s courting then invasion of Afghanistan to Saddam Hussein, and finally to the war at home where the calculated employment of fear generating tactics helped this administration collude with Congress to systematically strip constitutional liberties from all of us via the USA Patriot Act under the rubric of greater security.

If you’ve seen any of Moore’s other films, Roger and Me, The Big One, or Bowling for Columbine, then Fahrenheit 9-11 will feel a little different. Moore does not put himself center stage for the events of this film, rather staying off screen for most of the film as the sardonic and angry narrator carefully outlining the wrongdoings of the Bush administration then reinforcing that these things hurt YOU, because they were designed to do so.

Moore also uses an ingenious strategy to get his message to each segment of the voting population, he spends time with high school kids and young soldiers to appeal to the young voters, with a middle aged woman (Lila Lipscomb) who encouraged her son to join the Army for college money, then loses him in combat, Mrs. Lipscomb appeals to the baby-boomer voter, and finally with a few senior citizens who discuss the war and its impact on them.

Moore interweaves some frightening personal stories into the narrative to show the consequences of the Bush administration here at home. We meet a man who held a discussion about Iraq and Bush in his gym, later to be visited and interrogated by the FBI; we follow two Marine recruiters around Flint Michigan who use every sales tactic in the book to rope young poor kids into the service; we meet a Peace Action Club in San Diego that was infiltrated by a Sheriffs deputy (The club learned of his true identity from his obituary following a motorcycle accident). We also meet the only State Trooper, part time, who patrols the enormous Oregon/Canada border.

Moore breaks the film down into three discernable parts, the Bush/Saudi relationship, the War at Home, and The War in Iraq. Each part continuously relates back the Bush administration’s justification for war in Iraq.

When Moore does appear on camera it is with his trademark material, driving around Congress reading The Patriot Act over an ice-cream truck loudspeaker, discussing the role of the Saudi’s in shaping US foreign and domestic policy across the street from the Saudi embassy in D.C. (drawing two uniformed Secret Service men to ask what he’s doing), and chasing Senators and Representatives around the capital mall trying to get them to enlist THEIR kids to go and fight in Iraq.

Moore, like in his other films, sides with the poor and takes great care to illustrate how the poor make up the bulk of the US military, they put their lives on the line for all of us, and ask only that we don’t send them into harm’s way without a damn good reason.

Some critics have called his work Anti-military and Anti-American, but I can’t see that from my perspective. His treatment of the military, of the youth who charge into battle not knowing who the enemy is, or where, or what they look like, while “The Roof is on Fire” blares over their in-tank intercom, or who boast at first about the rush, and the excitement of battle, then slowly realize that their actions have real consequences, succumbing to the madness of war by torturing Iraqi citizens, and finally asking on camera to be brought home sets up his assertion that the military does horrible things sometimes but the blame for that rests at the TOP of the chain of command.

His use of imagery is excellent, from Bush sitting in an elementary school for 7 minutes after the second plane hits the second tower of the World Trade Center, to Bush and his various cabinet members preening before on camera interviews, to statements and contrary statements, news reports, and battle footage (some of it very gruesome), takes 4 years of a disastrous presidency and condenses it into 90 infuriating minutes designed specifically to make the viewer WANT to pull the other lever in the voting booth come November. Moore doesn’t go easy on the media either and accuses them of cozying up, way up, to the Bush administration and in effect giving him a free pass for the past 3 years and change.

Not really a surprise then that most of the negative reviews come from the mainstream media… but that’s for an essay not a review.

Like Moore, or hate him, it’s hard to deny his ability to make a powerful statement, and Fahrenheit 9-11 is the kind of work that may very well influence just who wins in November 2004. If you are already a dyed in the wool Republican or Democrat there is little that Moore can do to change your mind or tell you what you don’t already, but the film isn’t made for you, it’s made for the fence sitters, the independents, the same base that he courted in The Big One. The Independents will offer the decisive votes, and Moore wants them to vote “anyone but Bush”.

I felt a rush of cathartic anger while Fahrenheit 9-11 played, found myself repeatedly clenching and unclenching my fists, and hoping someone, anyone, would attempt to disrupt the movie so I’d have something satisfying to punch. Thankfully this film opened early enough in the election so that when I have to walk past the sign waving Bush supporters at my local polling place I am less likely to end up in jail for assault.

So is Fahrenheit 9-11 a “good film”? I don’t know, but it did have an impact on me, it did reinvigorate my desire to “vote the bastards out”, and it did impress me that he had the stones to get this film out to the public, especially now, when any counter-administration message is greeted with catcalls of “treason and sedition”.

So take that for what it’s worth because the proof of Fahrenheit 9-11’s impact won’t really be felt until November of 2004.