SiCKO
Thursday, 25, Oct 2007 01:14
Directed by Michael Moore, out Friday October 26th, in cinemas, starring Michael Moore, Tony Benn, running time 123 mins .
In a nutshell...
Moving and maddening as Moore goes medical
What's it all about?
Michael Moore embarks on his latest crusade against the shambolic US healthcare system and the saddening turn of events that leaves the most powerful country in the world as the only western nation without free universal healthcare.
Rather than targeting a single antagonist as in his previous movies (GM head Roger Smith in Roger & Me, NRA president Charlton Heston in Bowling for Columbine and George Bush in Fahrenheit 9/11), Moore tackles the heart of a problem that leaves honest US tax-payers forced to choose which finger they'd like to keep after a sawing accident, sent a bill for an ambulance ride after a car crash or, and especially tragically, left to watch their spouse or child die when insurance companies deny funding for life-saving treatments.
And in an unusual move, Moore ventures onto foreign soil, investigating the world's best health services. Suspend your disbelief for a second as the NHS we so love to criticise is revealed as the human right it was intended to be; and a darn sight better than the shoddy, profit-hungry and decidedly sickly US system.
Who's in it?
Michael Moore, obviously, though he's slightly less shabby looking than usual, having obviously invested in a razor.
A host of unfortunate Americans left broke or bereaved by the failings of the US medical system reveal their sometimes bleakly funny, frequently tragic stories, while beneficiaries of health care in Canada, France and the UK offer a rose-tinted picture of a life with free universal medical care.
Moore unusually chooses not to attack the insurance heads whose profit pursuit - revealed to have been sanctioned by Nixon in the early 70s - has left the system so stricken, sticking instead to the people helped or hindered by contrasting styles of medical provision and in doing so, making his latest polemic the most palatable.
As an example.
"I always thought the health insurance companies were here to help people" - Moore succumbing to his usual lowest-common-denominator arguing style.
Likelihood of a trip to the Oscars
A shoo-in. While his previous films were sparked by specific incidents - the closing of the GM factory, the Columbine shootings, the war in Iraq - SiCKO examines a long-standing, hugely important problem and with US presidential elections in the next year, the movie provides a very real opportunity for the next resident of the White House to change a sickening system.
What the others say
"Horrifying, heart-breaking, often hilarious - Moore's latest shock doc is a potent polemic." - Simon Crook, Empire
"We Americans inevitably feel we know the best way to do everything, but the great accomplishment of Sicko is that it is difficult to watch this slyly confrontational film and remain sure." - Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times.
So is it any good?
As with every Moore movie, during the moments in which he truly takes a seat on his high horse, it's genuinely difficult to tell if the soaring music and sun-drenched camerawork is ironic or if the director actually thinks he's on a crusade, especially in the ridiculously staged scenes of transporting 9/11 victims to Guantanamo Bay.
Yet though you're well aware you're being manipulated, only the coldest heart would fail to be moved by scenes of seriously ill 9/11 volunteers receiving the free treatment they so desperately need in Cuba, forced to travel to the unlikeliest destination after being failed by a broken system in their own country.
It's a Michael Moore film, so sentimentality and a one-sided argument should be taken as read. But as more and more horror stories emerge and the terrible consequences of choosing cash over care are revealed, the views of one interviewee - a Canadian who chose to fly home for free treatment with a snapped tendon rather than face a hefty bill in the US - are provocative, potent and more vital than ever. As he unwittingly reveals the selfishness at the heart of the US health care system one thought emerges; since when was caring for someone other than yourself a bad thing?
Regardless of your thoughts of Moore, his film strikes a chord with anyone with serious illness in the family, whether a US resident or not.
8/10
Lewis Bazley