It’s a good thing no one’s listening to Michael Moore anymore. Not because his ideas are dangerous or incendiary, but because he’s run out of things to say. The problems with his tepid new effort are manifold, but the biggest are its complete lack of relevant content and its failure to expose anything new.
“Capitalism: A Love Story,” follows the filmmaker’s haphazard trail across the post-recession United States, showing story after story of the supposed effects of human greed. On display are disgruntled union workers, displaced families whose homes have been repossessed, airplane pilots with salaries that scrape the poverty line and Catholic priests that pass along Jesus’ disdain for corporate America. With enough dissidents, Moore believes the Christian, democratic and socialist values that will save our country can be recognized and implemented, peacefully or otherwise.
Moore tends to make his films before the phenomenon he’s concerned with comes to a head. For instance, his first documentary, “Roger and Me,” essentially predicted the failure of the American auto industry 20 years before its actual occurrence and “Sicko” was released long before President Barack Obama and his health care platform were elected. With “Capitalism,” though, Moore has either missed the boat completely or we’re headed for a major anti-capitalist revolt. Let’s just say the board of Goldman Sachs can probably put off reinforcing their gold-plated deadbolts for the time being. If the revolution is coming, it won’t have anything to do with this movie.
For starters, Moore consistently underestimates his audience. Even a socialist would admit that a few stuttered sentences don’t constitute proof that a college economics professor can’t define the term “derivative.” Putting President Ronald Regan’s face on a graph doesn’t automatically make the numbers his fault or responsibility. And no serious economist would claim that a family, two cars and a house in the suburbs is an achievable proposition for 100 percent of the population at any given time. Yet, that is the standard in this film to which capitalism must measure up.
By now, the pattern and style of Moore’s work is well established. A Moore documentary looks and sounds like a Moore documentary, right down to the whiny, sarcastic narration. The music serves to heighten the emotions that on-screen images are designed to provoke — dramatic opera numbers for Dick Cheney and swelling violins for interviewees struggling to hold back the tears.
There are a couple cool stylistic tricks that create food for thought, however, like splicing in images of modern-day America with a soundtrack describing the fall of Rome.
On the topic of this movie’s successes, several of Moore’s interviews are moving pieces. Stories like a wife whose husband’s employer made millions off his death and didn’t offer her a penny are touching enough to momentarily excuse the total lack of empirical evidence (less the current recession) to back up Moore’s anti-capitalism agenda. Fired factory workers striking to win their last unpaid check are interesting, but in the end, they alone aren’t a reason America can’t climb out of this economic slog like we always have before.
And speaking of those factory workers, though their story is uplifting, Moore immediately stunts the effect by showing an extended news montage covering their plight. If the sit-in was so widely covered, what have we really learned? In fact, this is illustrative of this movie’s wider mistake. Moore’s main point seems simply to be that times are tough, but this will be nothing new to any viewer. Ironically, he seems to have reacted to the tough times just like banks he so maligns reacted to the housing boom, by attempting to capitalize with an inferior product.
The entire endeavor is capped with what’s probably intended to be Moore’s coup de gr?ce but comes off like a pathetic publicity stunt. A couple weak attempts to “citizen’s arrest” the board members of corporate banks are easily and predictably thwarted by security guards who look increasingly embarrassed for the documentarian. Judging by the film’s general emptiness, it’s doubtful anything would have happened even if Moore had managed to get through.
If the point of “Capitalism: A Love Story” was to create a trailblazing, incisive criticism of a deeply flawed market system, then Moore has no doubt failed on every front. But if his goal was to prove that nothing good can come of our capitalist society, well, he’s at least provided an excellent case in point.
2 stars out of 5.
