SiCKO

SiCKO, Michael Moore’s latest self-imposed ethical quest, sees the capped crusader go in search of a new corporate bully. This time round the Arch Enemy is America’s Health Care System, a villainous racquet hell-bent on eliminating the American Peoples’ Right To Healthcare through malevolent prices and malignant bureaucracy. Led by the nefarious Insurance Companies who enjoy making profit out of misery, the system is rotten through and through … But have no fear, our wondrous hero is here. In his trademark suit of T-shirt, jeans and baseball-cap, Double M will use his sizable (argumentative) bulk to fight the good fight and no doubt defeat those wicked evil-doers.

Excuse the sarcasm; it’s just incredibly difficult to take the man seriously. Having begun as a Cult Figure of the Underground Left, Double M has somehow squandered his credibility and replaced it with a pop-sensationalist’s stardom. Documentary makers have never been obliged to serve-up a fair hearing, but Double M has taken this liberty to such ludicrous extreme that he has basically undone any worth in seeing his films. Having watched him lie and browbeat his way to the point throughout Bowling For Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, and now SiCKO, Double M has enacted the complete reversal; from goodwill freedom fighter to self-serving tyrant.

So what is there to say of SiCKO? Well, firstly, it follows the same formula as its predecessors. Amidst a barrage of recycled TV images and jocular film references, Double M guffaws his way around a handpicked selection of interviewees. Each is set up to say the obvious thing, leaving Double M to react with (predicable) amazement. Secondly, SiCKO is never going to work for British audiences. It spends a good hour tediously trickling out information about the NHS, painting it as some kind of utopian ideal and conveniently bypassing any mention of MRSA or a waiting list. Which segues nicely into the third point – namely that Double M’s sojourn midway through the film to Europe is perhaps the single most appalling section of documentary filmmaking I have ever seen. Not only are the French and English healthcare systems treated with a blithe lack of understanding, but also having Double M investigate in a foreign land brings out the nauseatingly obsequious side to his interviewing style. This is never more apparent than when he plays the fool to a British GP, making him repeat again and again that, well, he’s really quite well-off thank-you-very-much, even though he’s a state employee in a state controlled healthcare system (Double M then follows him home, gawps at his material possessions, before presumably commending him on the calibre of his wife).

I am, of course, playing Devil’s Advocate with Double M. Part of the function of these films is to elicit a strong and activated opinion. And herein lies the problem in attacking this peculiar and farcical super-hero. Whilst he is so obviously flawed, a valid counterpoint always remains. By putting counter-hegemonic arguments out there for mass consumption, Double M makes available a perspective largely hidden from the American Public by its controlling right-wing media. Perhaps, then, there is cultural value in seeing these movies.

Unfortunately, SiCKO is a very bad film regardless of whether you see its hero as fighting the good fight or not. It is monotonous and bloated (its 123 minutes are in no way proportional to the amount it has to say), and there are none of the genuine laughs that punctuate Farenheit 9/11. What is worse, perhaps, is that the film seems to delude itself. In his production notes, Double M says that he did not want “to spend a lot of time telling the audience how bad the system is, because they already know”. And yet, as SiCKO compiles case after case of civilians wrongfully shafted by their insurance companies, that is exactly what it does – over and over again, for two hours and three minutes. SiCKO may mark Double M’s quietest appearance yet, but it also marks his worst.