The Heat Is On

I was there on opening night for Fahrenheit 9/11, along with the millions of other Americans that made it the #1 film of the week (in summer blockbuster season, mind you). I saw it as almost a Democratic civic duty to make this film as much money as possible, to get it into more theaters. It is kind of odd, however, if you look as the week's other top films: two dumb comedies (White Chicks and Dodgeball), an adult drama (The Terminal), some romantic comedy (The Notebook), and a couple of fading kid's films (Harry Potter and Shrek 2) which have been out for a month or so. All of the typical movies you'd expect in summer, namely the blockbuster action films and thrillers (Spider Man 2; King Arthur; I, Robot; The Bourne Supremacy; Catwoman), have yet to be released. This was an open slate for F9/11. Now, was that deliberate on the part of the "liberal elite" in Hollywood, or was it that the studios were afraid of this movie? I'm not sure.

What I do know is that this was Moore's best film since Roger & Me, mainly because it offers a cogent argument, rather than casting its net wide and flailing for answers (which I felt was a weakness of Bowling for Columbine). He seems almost reluctant to perform his normal shtick of provoking the powerful: even the couple moments of this in the film (reading the Patriot Act from an ice-cream truck in front of the Capitol, and trying to sign up Congressmen to send their children to Iraq) are jarringly abrupt. It's like Moore knew he had to include this, so he goes "OK, here you go, ha ha, now, back to my point."

And his point(s) are nothing new to those of us who've made the effort to pay attention over the last 4 years. I imagine they'll be very eye-opening to others, like my parents, who called immediately after watching the movie on Saturday, screaming "Do you believe that about the Saudis?" The arguments in the film are very well-researched and well-told, and while Moore can't resist some fun at the expense of the Bushies (like the Bonanza-like open for "Afghanistan"), or posit some questionable alternate histories (I know that some believe the war in Afghanistan had a lot to do with a proposed Unocal pipeline from the Caspian Sea, but the need to demolish an al Qaeda hotbed, or at least put a Band-Aid on it, seems much more plausible), he keeps these to a minimum. I think the film is really targeted to the swing voter, to "conservative Democrats" like Lila Lipscomb, the woman in F9/11's second half who loses her son in Iraq, and staggers with untold grief throughout the rest of the film. In fact, Lipscomb is the moral center, an ordinary citizen whose eyes are opened when the effects of the reckless Bush policies across the globe become personal. This is why F9/11 will succeed to such a great degree. I expect to still be talking about it through the rest of the summer.