Twenty years after his influential debut, Roger & Me, Michael Moore returns to his roots by pulling back the curtain on capitalism to reveal the insidious role it has played in the destruction of the American dream for many people. Back in 1989, auto workers in Flint, MI, were lamenting layoffs and wondering how they would support their families without jobs to pay the bills, or benefits to ensure their health. Flash forward two decades, when cities all across the country are feeling the same
pressures that Flint residents were back when GM left them high and dry. With an average of 14,000 U.S. jobs lost every day and taxpayer money constantly being pumped into failing financial institutions, the question must be asked: how long can this go on before the entire system collapses? Is there really any hope for Americans who are losing their homes to foreclosure and seeing their savings get wiped out at an unprecedented rate? In order to seek out an answer to this question and many more, Moore takes a trip to our nation's capitol, engaging average Americans in conversations about the prospect of repairing America's failing, debt-ridden economy along the way. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
Moore is always visually playful and subversive, and even when dealing with such serious and depressing topics entertaining; but he's also game enough to examine America's mythology of prosperity.
As a filmmaker creating a product for a marketplace, supported by profit-seeking investors, he obviously has some comfort level with capitalism in the sense of doing business.
Michael Moore is up to his old tricks in Capitalism: A Love Story, and that's sure to both infuriate, and entertain and inform, depending which side of the Michael Moore fence you stand on.
While it's amusing to watch Moore on camera plaster the entrance to the New York Stock Exchange with crime-scene tape, when Moore goes through his customary security-guard harassment in another segment, it's hard not to think: Here we go again.
In a movie long on symbols, dead peasants are the most egregious, but a close second would be the rah-rah "confidential" Citibank memo about the United States having become a "plutonomy."
A lot of the old Moore is still obvious in Capitalism, his genuine belief in everyone pulling together his feel for a good public stunt but he's lost a little something. The social zeal of his best work has been replaced with a hint of fanaticism.
As with all of Moore's films, this is really about the fall of The American Dream, with Moore acting as our tour guide into the rotten core of his beloved country. And once again, his heart is in the right place. If only he could keep his ego out of it.
This isn't just about pointing fingers at those who have gotten us into this mess, but about mobilizing working people to stop waiting for someone else to fix it, to stop sitting idly by while their wages, pensions, health care, and homes are stolen.
Moore continues his career as provocateur with this often eloquent, occasionally muddled, bill of particulars which indicts Wall Street's ethos of greed. As with most of Moore's documentaries, the film is strongest when he's behind the camera, rather than
While Moore still stacks the deck, there are enough scenes portraying callously inhuman policies, such as the death peasant insurance, to pacify the viewer for two overlong hours.
Still fighting the good fight for the working man, Capitalism is entertaining but conspicuously bankrupt of fresh ideas and insights. By now, Moore is starting to feel like less.
I love these type of documentaries. It investigates the cause of the economic crisis in US and how taxpayers have had to bail out the rich corporates. Most shocking news - corporates like Wal-Mart, Bank of America, Proctor and Gamble benefit from the death of employees because of policies they have taken out in them.
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