Michael Moore, the one-man scourge of right-wing America, is back.
Director: Michael Moore
Cast: Michael Moore, Krista Kiuru, Tim Walker
Rating: (M) ★★★
Where to Invade Next (Rialto) opens with Moore pretending the joint chiefs of staff, so embarrassed at routinely spending billions without ever being able to definitively win a war, have called him in to offer a solution. Moore tells them to sit tight and leave the invasions to him.
Then, armed with an American flag, he heads to Europe to find what they are doing better than the US and steal those ideas.
It is a moderately funny setup that quickly becomes tiresome. I soon came to dread the gag of Moore and his flag, and started longing for some polite European to do something gloriously inappropriate. But alas, they were all too well-mannered.
Moore gives us a quick once-over of nine countries: the Italians have an incredible number of paid holidays, but still manage to be as productive as America; France gives time and attention to teaching children how to eat healthily; Finland dropped standardised testing and educational results have never been better. The list goes on.
The case studies Moore highlights are interesting, in some cases very interesting, but Moore's gee-whiz style and gadfly hopping from country to country fails to convince.
I'm basically on Moore's side - I want these lovely shiny examples of what can be done if people work together for the common good to be true - but I kept finding myself wondering about what we were not being shown.
- by Christine Powley
