PLOT: Michael Moore examines the events leading up to and following the 2016 United States presidential election.
REVIEW: Given all that’s happened over the last couple of years, did you really think Michael Moore wasn’t gonna make a movie about it? Sure, he rubs some people the wrong way. Yet, the fact is he’s inspired a generation of movie-watchers to be more aware of the world they live in, from ROGER & ME, through BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE (which I still think is his best film), to FAHRENHEIT 9/11, SICKO, CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY, WHERE TO INVADE NEXT, and now this – FAHRENHEIT 11/9.
Less slick than his other films, it feels like Moore was working against a tight deadline in order to get his film ready for the Midterm elections, but the message is clear. We’re in big trouble. While I take issue with some of Moore’s digressions, including a lengthy aside that focuses on Donald Trump’s relationship with his daughter Ivanka, that feels a little tawdry, much of what he says will touch a nerve. I especially liked his lengthy section on the Flint water crisis, one of the more unseemly events in recent history, where poor residents were essentially poisoned. It’s particularly damning to Governor Rick Snyder, with Moore even trying to get one of his aids to drink a water sample that they say is fine (they naturally refuse). Moore also stops by Snyder’s mansion to conduct an interview, but he’s not allowed in (at least Charlton Heston in BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE had the guts to talk on camera).
From there, the film covers recent events in gun control activism, with the closest thing to optimism at this point coming when Moore in allowed in to talk to the kids, all of whom express disbelief at the fact that the problem has become so widespread and that their efforts are being stymied. Moore also includes real school shooting footage, driving home the urgency of the situation, as well as allowing Trump’s own comments on the matter to sink him.
It all becomes quite depressing to watch after a while, but it’s certainly a call to action that doesn’t let anyone off lightly. This includes the democrats, with Moore condemning them for simply assuming they’d win the election, cutting to horribly awkward footage with Clinton campaign aides essentially celebrating their victory before any of the votes ever came in.
Through it all, Moore makes his absolute loathing of Trump and his machine apparent, but he also doesn’t spare himself, cutting to footage of him playing nice with Trump when they both appeared on Roseanne Barr’s short lived talk show in the nineties. Moore, despite his horror at the current situation, does attempt to divert from doom and gloom a bit, emphasizing they fact that America, as a whole, is a progressive country, with voter apathy the eventual culprit. This movie is a call to action, and if the success of his previous films are any indication, it won’t fall on deaf ears.