Movie Review: 'Where to Invade Next'
By Bill Wine
KYW Newsradio 1060
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Detractors of muckraking documentarian Michael Moore may feel that Moore is less.
But regardless of how you feel about his politics or his cinematic style, his uniqueness and impact on the movie landscape as an entertaining love-him-or-hate-him provocateur whose biases are worn on his sleeve can't be denied.
His latest provoc-doc has a misleading title – warmongering is, after all, not the issue at hand -- but it carves out a fascinating niche for itself.
Where to Invade Next might sound like a critique of military behavior, but it's really not. Even though Moore points out early on that we haven't actually won a war since World War 2.
Having explored corporate malfeasance (Roger & Me), terrorism (Fahrenheit 9/11), gun control (Bowling for Columbine), healthcare (Sicko), and financial inequity (Capitalism: A Love Story), Moore turns his attention to tendencies in other countries that we might benefit from by "invading" and then stealing ideas from.
So he "invades" France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Iceland, Portugal, Finland, and elsewhere, and, as our friendly tour guide, finds out about programs that seem to be working there that we might try here.
Of course, this demands that we adopt a humbler approach to self-improvement, give up the myth of absolute American supremacy, stop perceiving ourselves as the greatest nation in the world, and admit that there are societal practices elsewhere that we would do well to copy.
His approach is to ignore each nation's problems or failings and instead concentrate on their achievements, on practices that it might be wise for us to replicate.
There are, in other words, customs, attitudes, innovations, and radical social notions that we might want to consider implementing in the United States that they are already doing elsewhere, in, say, education, nutrition, violence, maternity, and women's rights that we might deign to borrow – okay, steal – and apply.
After all, folks in other cultures get good ideas too. Yes, they can learn from us, but we can learn from them as well. Especially when ideas that have worked there might work here to improve our quality of life.
How is it, then, that any country manages to give extended paid vacations to employees, that serve nutritional food to schoolkids, or that provide a free college education? Just to cite a few.
Over the years, Moore has been accused of self-righteousness, but his impish passion and abiding sense of humor have usually softened the edges a bit.
There's the usual food for thought in Where to Invade Next, but Moore's first film in six years comes from a kinder, gentler Moore. And because he seems somehow humbler, his request that we chase a measure of humility goes down somewhat easier.
Detractors will point out the film's grass-is-greener underpinning and they're not incorrect. Yes, this is a progressive activist or, depending on your point of view, liberal propagandist shaming us into admitting our limitations.
But Moore makes an eloquent, engaging case nonetheless.
And he even finds a way to end this bursting-at-the-seams conversation starter on an unmistakably optimistic note.
So we'll copy 3 stars out of 4. Where to Invade Next leaves us wanting Moore.
