Review: Fahrenheit 11/9

Image courtesy of Briarcliff Entertainment.

With "Fahrenheit 11/9," Michael Moore takes on his easiest target to date - Donald Trump - and yet, the provocateur and filmmaker appears more interested in the dire state of the nation. In getting bogged down in too many topics to count, Moore's latest often feels unfocused and messy. However, when it hits its targets, the film is deeply unsettling and moving.

The film opens with an excruciatingly long prelude involving the 2016 election night - one I've tried to forget for the past two years - that includes a little more snark than is probably necessary. Following this, Moore lays the blame for Trump's ascension on everyone from Gwen Stefani (yes, it's a joke) and the media to the Democratic Party and himself - Moore is seen joking on a talk show with Trump and the premiere of his film "Sicko" was partially made possible by Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon.

In what is, perhaps, the film's most discouraging hot take, Moore lays more blame on the nation's first black president for the rise of Trump than the legions of voters who gleefully bought into his bashing of minorities, immigrants, women, the disabled and Muslims wholesale. He displays some facts and figures showing how the United States is, technically, a liberal nation (due to its support for gun control, gay marriage, equal pay for women, etc.), but appears to be of the naive notion that Trumpsters would have voted for Democratic socialism if, I don't know, they were read a few Noam Chomsky essays.

He also claims that voting won't save the United States from the rise of demagoguery, nor will Robert Mueller's investigation. He later touts all the progressives who are running for office across the country. His film is clearly a call to action, but to do what, since he seems to think that all hope is lost? Moore seems to have stored up more anger at the Democratic Party - and presents a not-so-realistic view of the importance of delegate roll calls at conventions - than Trump himself, despite later comparing him to Adolf Hitler.

Despite some quibbles, there's a fair amount to recommend in "Fahrenheit 11/9," which refers to the day after Trump's election. Among the most poignant segments is one dedicated to the teachers who took part in the statewide strike earlier this year, while the sequences involving the students of Parkland, Florida, who took leadership roles in gun control following a shooting at their school, are also powerful. Although its inclusion is a little clunky in terms of how it is edited in with the other narratives at play, one of the best segments in the film is the water crisis in Flint - which is Moore's home town - and the callous disregard by Michigan's governor in creating it, and then failing to address it.

As a member of the media, let me be the first to agree with Moore's assessment of the failure of the mainstream media - which rolled out the red carpet for Trump, due to his providing a ratings boom for media outlets - during the 2016 election. And there's a striking sequence late in the film in which Moore chronicles Hitler's rise against that of Trump, from attacks on the media to criticizing sports players (no joke).

So, while one might think that with America's current political climate and a president whose administration is characterized primarily by how out of control it is, Moore's latest would be among his sharpest polemics, "Fahrenheit 11/9" is made up of many moving parts (too many), of which some are especially effective, others miss their targets (or seemingly aim at the wrong ones) and several topics are squeezed in, but somewhat awkwardly. It's not one of the director's best films, but it is often emotionally engaging and enraging.