Sicko

I am an unabashed fan of Michael Moore as he truly wants to make a difference in American society through his films. He is using film as a medium for his bigger role as a propagandist/politician. This is easily his best and most cohesive work yet and shows his incredible maturation as a filmaker. His previous films have always taken a large leftist slant and have blatantly bashed republicans. The issues that he has tackled in the past have definetly been anti-Republican (9/11, leadup to Iraq, gun control, corporate America)and he surely takes some swipes at Republicans here (rightly so) but this film is much more even-handed than any of his previous works.

The issue at hand in this film is the disastrous state of health care in this country which is not a republican/democrat issue it is a people issue. The film is funny, heart breaking, poignant and incredibly watchable. With Michael Moore's ascerbic wit and everyman point of view it really drives the point home about how ashambles the system is in our country. He goes to France, England and Cuba and explores their health care systems through round-table conversations, hospital visits, interviews with random people and a brilliant sequence in France with a travelling doctor who makes housecalls. The film flowed beautifully and when it was funny it was laugh out loud, knee-slapping funny.

I cannot think of a movie that has been made in a very long time that could potentially have this much of an impact on government policy. The film at its core is not anti-government or ant-American but it is a cry for help as Michael Moore truly cares about this country and the lack of effective health care for the 250 million people that are covered. There are also 50 million people that are not covered but that was not the focus of this movie. It is a scathing indictment of our crooked health care system with its insane profiteering at the expense of human lives. Change has to happen as we are the only country in the western world that does not have free health care for its citizens. Please see this movie. It will effect you profoundly if you have a heart.

As an aside Michael Moore surprised all of us and spoke for around 10 minutes before the movie started and thanked us for coming. That was pretty cool.