Movie review: "Bowling for Columbine"

This week Michael Moore premiered his latest documentary, "Bowling for Columbine." Moore poses as a bum, wearing sneakers, jeans, an old untucked t-shirt and baseball cap, and by the end of the film the viewer might even suggest he smells. But what a great disguise this is. Moore uses his disarming appearance and seemingly naïve speech to induce such big names as Charlton Heston into entering interviews guards down. At the end of the film the viewer sees Moore for what he really is: a satirist, leftist, liberal demanding answers from the people with power, or as Moore would say, "the stupid white men."

"Bowling for Columbine" is Moore's sorrowful yet witty take on a familiar and humiliating question: "Why does the United States have the highest murder rate of any advanced industrial nation?" Moore explores the common liberal response, "there are too many guns in the United States." This response would seem credible since it's almost impossible to get a gun in Europe or Japan. Of course they would have lower gunshot death rates. But looking next door to our neighbors Moore finds he can no longer swallow this answer so easily. Moore finds himself in Canada, a country that consumes the same violent popular culture that we do and has plenty of guns-seven million for a population of thirty-one million people-but suffers fewer than two hundred gunshot murders annually (as opposed to our eleven thousand). Nosing around in Ontario Moore finds unlocked doors and a community lacking not guns, but paranoia.

Moore eventually exposes the paranoia pervasive in American society and targets this, not the guns, as the underlying force pushing Americans towards violence. But where does this paranoia come from? Through a cartoon skit Moore briefly summarizes the history of violence embedded in American history. The audience is reminded of everything from the degradation of the Native Americans to the L.A. riots. Moore then progresses to reveal the injustices that have occurred through the imperialistic advances of the United States government in other countries through military coups, the bombing of innocent civilians, and the exploitation of poverty-stricken countries. "Does America have reason to be paranoid," Moore states more than asks, leaving the audience to rest in an uncomfortable revelation.

But does a violent past necessarily demand a violent future? Great Britain and Germany possess two of the bloodiest pasts in world history but each year their gunshot death toll is under one hundred. Moore admits that a violent history will only add to the mounting paranoia but reasons that there must be another factor contributing to the American way of violence. Soon the audience finds themselves staring in the face of their very own national media. Shows of violence flash across the screen: COPS, America's Most Wanted, local news. Yes, the local news. Moore finds that although the crime rate has decreased, the media's coverage of violent crimes in the United States has increased. The film digs deeper and deeper into the many whys-why are we killing each other, why the media is doing this-until it uncovers the answers.

Moore's question-answer format takes the audience on a journey into discovering the truth behind America's gun problems. Moore is one of the few who are able to combine relevant issues with humor while maintaining sincerity. With humor Moore lightens the mood of the movie and inconspicuously deposits revealing droplets of knowledge into the mind of the viewer. "Bowling for Columbine" is a passionate movie revealing American society for what it was, what it has become, and what it must now do.

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