Just the name alone, Michael Francis Moore, resonates. Moore, now 61, is a native of Flint, Michigan. Yes, that Flint, Michigan, home to a shuttered General Motors auto plant, currently in the news for lead-contaminated water pipes. Moore is always good copy: give him an award and he'll make a speech. After making agit-prop docs against GM and its corporate honcho (1989's Roger and Me ), the insanity of American gun violence (2002's Bowling for Columbine, using the Colorado high school mass-shooting tragedy as a launching pad for a witty film sermon against the National Rifle Association and then-NRA spokesman Charlton Heston), and US president George W. Bush's war policies (Fahrenheit 9/11 ), Moore has been unusually quiet on the film front recently, while still sending out a volley of articles, hosting small film festivals, and making the TV talk-show circuit.
Now the master is back, with a softer, gentler message in the ironically titled new documentary Where To Invade Next. The film finds Moore trotting around to a host of "second-tier" yet hardly Third World countries from North Africa to Scandinavia. With his media clout, Moore gets one-on-one audiences with earnest, sometimes bemused state leaders and citizen activists, carrying with him an American flag that symbolizes his "invasion." His message can be boiled down to: If a moderate Muslim country, Morocco, can join the 21st century with medical care for all, why is the US holding back? Part of Moore's strategy is to avoid piling onto a lame-duck Obama, who clearly tried his best, even if "Obamacare" is less than first-class, too expensive by far, and leaves out too many medically indigent hard-working Americans. But WTIN arrives just in time to feed the flames of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders' student-supported campaign for the White House.
Moore is both a joy and a chore to write about, because he has so many oars in the water that one can easily become disoriented by his brazen ubiquity. Is he a model citizen? Depends on your point of view. He's a born Catholic who has attacked his church's teachings and its actual shabby record without letting the door slam on his ample rump. Is he a bully? Did he unfairly confront a clearly disoriented Charlton Heston during their gun debate?
Is the kinder, gentler Michael Moore, like Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders in his refusal to go for the jugular against Hillary Clinton, merely striking a pose? Or is his a recognition that the country is divided along hard-to-define lines, with dangers lurking for the unwary? WTIN is a great mix of entertainment, attacks on the 1%, cautions about ideological hubris, and a subtle reminder that nothing lasts forever. In it, Moore reminds us that this richest society in the world has fallen pitifully short of providing the basic human right of health care. Someday there will no longer be a Michael Moore satirically planting the American flag down in countries whose people have left us behind in the proverbial rear-view mirror of history.