Rating of
3/4
"Bowling For Columbine" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 08/28/12
Michael Moore examines the social climate which resulted in the massacre at Columbine High School, when two socially awkward students armed themselves with automatic weapons and went on a killing spree. Michael Moore is very much a Marmite kind of film maker; people either love or hate him and his one man crusades against the established way of thinking. I personally applaud his willingness to stand up to those who would suppress the truth to promote their own agenda and let's face it, the American corporate system is the biggest propaganda machine in the world so anyone claiming that Moore is "biased" really ought to be taking a closer look at his opposition. In Bowling For Columbine he surprisingly does not point the finger directly at US gun culture (although there has to be something to be said for Chris Rock's ammunition pricing system! If it works for cigarettes...) Instead he examines the economic climate in which the local community had been drained of employment and opportunity, the media's sensationalist, fear-mongering agenda and the lack of hope that the educational system cultivates within the disenfranchised. Occasionally a little heavy handed (ending on a confrontation with Charlton Heston which comes across as the meaningless harassment of an old man was a mistake) but always informative and entertaining.
