The Big One

I applaud Michael Moore for addressing gnarly, difficult subjects that other commentators and especially the news media are too chicken to tackle. This 1997 BBC documentary follows his '96 book tour promoting "Downsize This!". In the film, Moore travels to small town and Rust Belt America -- places often ignored by other social critics in favor of big cities and glamor locations. The realism and problems of ordinary, middle class, Middle Americans is one of the highlights of the film. This is an honest look at the economic problems in the US circa the 90s.

One of Moore's strengths and weaknesses is just how funny he is -- he's a skilled speaker and essentially a talented stand-up comic, whose material is politically skewed and occasionally self-deprecating. This is disarming, and also plain, laugh-out-loud funny. I watched this film recently with a group of people who were in stitches, even though some of the material (in 2005) is a bit outdated by recent historical events. Some of Moore's funniest material is when he confronts executives or stone faced PR honchos, and waits for their predictable, canned, nonsensical remarks designed to give little information and obscure the issue at hand. It's powerful stuff, watching the rich and selfish defending their privileges, and a scathing commentary on economic inequality in what we like to think is the freest, richest, most egalitarian society in the world.

HOWEVER -- Moore often weakens his own arguments by using shoddy and overly simplistic examples. Comparing a torn-down factory in Flint Michigan to the Oklahoma City bombing is very tacky, and not even a good analogy -- the loss in Oklahoma was human life, including many pre-school children...the loss of the Murrah building itself is insignificant. Unemployed workers in Flint do actually have other options, like moving elsewhere for work. It's a cheap shot. Another lame effort occurs when Moore challenges the president of Nike to build a shoe factory in Flint, over his objections that "American's don't want to make shoes". Moore claims he will get 100 workers together who do want to produce footwear for Nike -- then the film shows a pitiful rally of a couple dozen folks, many of whom are small children. Closeup photography obscures the fact that Moore could NOT find 100 willing workers in Flint, despite all the well-publicized poverty...is it true that Americans are unwilling to manufacture shoes? We'll never know.

Another flaw is that Michael Moore is not especially honest about his own status in all this. He's a very successful pundit and filmmaker (although this movie was made years before the phenom of "Fahrenheit 911"), and had already published several books and had a TV series. He's wealthy by the standards of most Americans, a celebrity and immune to the economic realities that he is describing. That tends to make his criticism rather facile. For example, he fails to explain how (as in the example above) Americans earning even minimum wage, about $5 per hour, can possibly compete in manufacturing with Third World workers who make 50 cents an hour...no matter how hardworking or willing those Americans are. This is the hard reality facing both employees and employers, and it's curiously left on the table here without discussion...except perhaps to suggest (vaguely) that companies should make business decisions on charitable grounds, rather than economic ones.

Still with all it's flaws, I find this (and other) Moore documentaries a valuable contribution to National debate, especially along Red State/ Blue State lines. The most valuable historical information in "The Big One" is whenvoters (talking about the '96 Clinton/Dole presidential race) say that "both candidates are the same" and "turnout will be historically low" and "who cares who is in office". Those comments are truly astonishing in light of current events and political atmosphere, and this is only 8 years later. The world has been turned on it's axis by current events! Yet it's important to realize how recent that change has occurred, and extremely valuable to look at evaluate the political and economic changes of just the last decade.

In conclusion: a challenging and interesting documentary, with some flaws, but extremely funny. Worth watching.

Michael Moore's latest documentary focuses on his new book and more assorted attacks on corporations which he deems as inferior or greedy. Although it is somewhat interesting, it is nowhere near as important as 1989's "Roger & Me", which was strongly valid in argument. (When GM CEO Roger Smith laid off thousands of workers just for cheap labor in Mexico, it was probably one of the most dispicable things anyone with four limbs has done.)

But the bad timing is nowhere near severe as the hypocrisy. For example, shortly before the messy 2000 Presidential election, Salon magazine surfaced Ralph Nader's 1999 tax returns revealing that he owns a mutual fund with stocks in Walmart, The Gap and an affiliate of Halliburton Oil (all of which came under fierce attack from the Moore/Nader team) This crusade courtesy of the Naderites may have erroneously lead to the wrong guy being in office, and the Moore/Nader team have taken no responsiblity to their actions, or the hypocrisy which surfaced when the Green Party candidate's stocks appeared.

This just goes to show that investigative commentary can lead to contradictions and often diminish credibility in argument.

The Big One is a well rounded accomplishment for Michael Moore. This film is almost like watching an autobiographical documentary. The movie highlights the notable events surrounding Michael Moore's book tour for Downsize This!. The feel of a rushed and improvised tour schedule sets the pace for scenes of public speeches, crew activity, and corporate inquisition. The film shows that Michael Moore reveals his humanitarian instincts in even the most hectic of environments. The direction of developing plot is specific to each of the cities that Moore goes to on his tour. The story that surrounds Nike, Inc. is absolutely worth watching. Corporate business is analyzed throughout this film and Michael Moore makes it a point to have the audience think about what they are watching. Highly recommended for fans of Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, Sicko and admirers of Michael Moore.

Yet more excellent work from documentarian Michael Moore as he hits the road in 1996 for a 47-city tour to promote his new book "Downsize This". Funded by Random House Publishing, with that company having no idea that Moore is not just going to sign books, the all-world film-maker pulls no punches as he gets to the heart of corporation down-sizing just as some of the biggest money-makers in the U.S. start to have all-time record high profits. We see regular folks laid off by monsters like Pay Day (the candy bar company), Procter & Gamble, General Motors, Johnson Controls and Pillsbury. National corporations leaving the U.S. to pay lesser fees to employees in third-world countries is explained in great detail and Moore even has a unique conversation with Phil Knight, the CEO of Nike (also the only CEO brave enough to verbally spar), and needless to say Moore comes out looking much better than his opponent. "The Big One" shows the lack of political choices for the general public (the film makes it blatantly clear that the Clinton/Dole race of 1996 was a no-win vote) as blue-collar, middle-class workers fall in the work-place due to the lack of government control on power-mad corporations that only look at the bottom line and constantly talk about competition in their industry (this makes the big-wigs look even sillier in reality). The main theme from "Pulp Fiction" late during Moore's run of metropolitan areas ends up setting the overall tone of this exceptional documentary feature. 5 stars out of 5.

The movie is frequently reminiscent of Letterman, visiting corporate headquarters with silly stunts - there's no way for the victims to win; even when they play along, as Phil Knight tries to, there's no room for rational argument. Moore is pretty engaging and energetic, but it soon becomes apparent that his movie has little ambition other than to string together such diverting moments and to hammer away at the main anti-downsizing theme. Astonishing that everyone makes the opposing case so poorly - it's a walk over; an overwhelming victory for the Forces Of Good. But Moore doesn't address the broader revolutions that would be required to make his ideas stick - the corporate heads are surely culpable, but if they didn't play along they'd be fired: it's investment-obsessed America (Beardstown Ladies and all) that keeps this crazy cycle going. Moore has a great gift for getting into the middle of activity and is a great raconteur, but for someone so relentlessly pure on hammering at the same anti-capitalist drum he leaves his own success conspicuously unexamined. The ragbag style is always entertaining though and the film has an appealing zippy pace - reservations aside, the uncertain encounter with Knight makes for a good climax.