Post by The Doctor on Dec 18, 2007 10:49:42 GMT
Watched this last night. This is the Michael Moore film about healthcare in the US. Like all of his films/books, his bias is pretty obvious to anyone with basic media literacy. This time, his opinion is that the US healthcare system is broken. This is pretty well established five minutes in, but there's still 2 hours to go. What follows is rather frustating. Rather than really go into depth on the issue it feels rather superficial, not helped by lengthy and rose-tinted sections on the UK and French health care systems which aren't at all critically examined other than "they're great!". Points raised could have been clarified with much tighter editing.
The film has the usual Moore style gimmicks, but they fall much flatter than before. Taking some sick folk to get care in Cuba felt manipulative rather than making a convincing argument. Now I happen to agree with the points made about the US health care system but I'm not sure the film is well enough crafted to change minds.
Despite the many flaws of the film, it is still worth watching nonetheless. Just don't expect anything particularly incisive though I defy anyone not to get angry about what has happened to some of the people featured in the film, in particular the fates of some of the workers who assisted with the '9/11' emergency. The film did achieve something though, in that it got me thinking more about health care than anything else I've read/seen in a while.
So, overall, flawed and nowhere near as penetrating as it should have been, but worth taking a look.
-Ralph
The film has the usual Moore style gimmicks, but they fall much flatter than before. Taking some sick folk to get care in Cuba felt manipulative rather than making a convincing argument. Now I happen to agree with the points made about the US health care system but I'm not sure the film is well enough crafted to change minds.
Despite the many flaws of the film, it is still worth watching nonetheless. Just don't expect anything particularly incisive though I defy anyone not to get angry about what has happened to some of the people featured in the film, in particular the fates of some of the workers who assisted with the '9/11' emergency. The film did achieve something though, in that it got me thinking more about health care than anything else I've read/seen in a while.
So, overall, flawed and nowhere near as penetrating as it should have been, but worth taking a look.
-Ralph
