Moore's unfocused message

I saw "Fahrenheit 9/11," Michael Moore's controversial polemic against the Bush administration and the real motives behind the war in Iraq. I wasn't impressed.\nI don't mean I disliked it. Moore makes some good points, which, although fairly obvious, don't get a lot of press, and there is some mildly powerful and interesting footage in the film. It's worth five bucks for a matinee show, but it's just not documentary film at its best.\nI suppose I shouldn't be surprised. At a time like this, politics takes precedence over art. But it wasn't only the movie's lackluster form that left me disappointed. President Bush is such an easy target, especially for a filmmaker who can count on a huge number of agreeable and willing believers. It's that Moore allowed his argument and narrative to get a little sloppy.\nPotshots may get an easy laugh from those who are convinced, but they aren't going to convert the undecided -- and they're definitely not going to ingratiate the dubious. Making Bush look dumb, for example, or intimating the Marines using racial profiling, might make liberals happy, but such scenes rely on stock tropes and long-standing truisms to increase the emotional response of the film's base without having to delve deeply into the evidence.\nIt's preaching to the choir, and it just doesn't help to accomplish the real goal of this film: to convince undecided citizens to vote for John Kerry on Nov. 2. Therein we find the film's biggest problem: Not only does it lose its focus at times, it eventually implodes on its own logic.\nMoore is careful to cast a few soft aspersions on the Democrats, but he's even more careful not to paint with a fine brush. Chief among the smudge marks is the conspicuous absence of Kerry, who, like Bush, comes from an extremely privileged family, is personally wealthy and a member of the same secret society as the president. If this film is actually about rich white men dominating the rest of the world -- which it tries to be in the last quarter or so -- you'd think such would be pretty germane stuff for the public to recall. In this regard, Moore's film leaves the realm of documentary and becomes mere politics, if not disingenuous.\nNevertheless, I would be willing to forgive this major oversight (that's the nature of political speech and, despite their personal similarities, Kerry's current policy is a bit different than Bush's), but I see something a bit more sinister at work. "Fahrenheit 9/11" tries to create resentment. \nResentment against Bush, against his Cabinet, against Congress, against rich people and the system -- even against corporate business in general. But then the film pins all this general discontent on Bush himself, as if somehow by his lonesome he enables what Moore has otherwise consistently shown to be a vast and effective monopoly of a wealthy worldwide oligarchy. \nAnd that's just the lid of the Pandora's box.\nImagine, if you would, the ideal conclusion for Moore's apparent agenda: Bush loses and Kerry and his cronies take over. How much will actually change? Will the damage done or the profit gained be remitted? Will the business interests lose out? Will big-time lobbyists have less access and normal people get more? Will America leave Iraq? Will the Patriot Act be repealed?\nNo, no, no. And no.\nPerhaps getting rid of Bush is the first step in what Moore sees as a long-term process. But the film itself places so much weight on sending Bush back to Texas that I fear it obscures the broader story. \nIn fact, the film would have its devotees assume their vote for Kerry would somehow make the world all better. All this from ousting that durn Texan, the apparent fall-guy for a global business scheme Moore would have us buy and then forget -- as long as we do what he wants in the short term.\nAs all decent propaganda, in other words, "Fahrenheit 9/11" will have exposed part of the problem and then rallied the people to forget the lesson, overlook the implications and strike down something only tangentially related as a full solution.\nOh, and Moore will become even more fabulously rich in the process.\nSounds like a conspiracy theory to me. Anyone have a camera?