Victoria Alexander reviews FAHRENHEIT 11/9

Michael Moore heralds the apocalypse. Everything has gone to Hell in a hand basket. Donald Trump bulldozed right over the savior of America!

Before Michael Moore, were documentary filmmakers ever stars of their movies? Moore started an ugly trend. The writer/director is not an unseen presence but a part of the action. It’s about time this practice ends. Perhaps FAHRENHEIT 11/9 will be its death knell.

Here Moore streamlines everything that has happened in the last few years. Donald Trump is only a small part of FAHRENHEIT 11/9. The water crisis in Flint, Michigan, truly horrific, should have been the entire movie. But what about the president’s race, guns, and the future of the Democratic party? Moore even takes a strong, blistering shot at our only holy man, President Obama. He is ridiculed. He happily drank Flint, Michigan tap water twice! One person not torched is Hilary Clinton. Moore ignores the fact that no one wanted her candidacy but those who have funded her, or the fact that everyone resented the fact that she felt entitled to it. It was “her turn.” Instead, the best Moore can do is show her staff carrying around a life-size cut-out of her instead of her appearing in person at events.

Moore glides into the new, fresh faces of those who are seeking public office without any credentials. He is inspired by congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others like her. Yet, wasn’t that just what Donald Trump offered the American public on his campaign trail? He boasted he was not a politician. Remember “drain the swamp”? Okay, he lied, but that is what people believed he would do. Get rid of people with 40-year jobs who never worked a 9 to 5 job. He wasn’t someone bred from childhood to inherit a public job as a senator or congressman. Trump pitted himself against those, like the Bushes and the Kennedys, that orchestrated political dynasties.

Then the last segment of the too-long film rested on the Parkland School shooting survivors Emma González and David Hogg. They are the hope for America. Both of them are victims of reality TV acting. Their gun control movement has shaken stable, gun-loving America to its roots. The ground swelled and made them stars. González gives one of those speeches – with dramatic pauses – that are appropriate eulogies for fallen heroes.

Moore really shoves his agenda forward at the film’s end. Did you get the message? Did it go by too fast? If González’s dramatic speech did not stir you, Moore ends his film with González again, this time resting on her shaved head and proud, defiant face. Sometimes, even the dense, dumb audience members know when it is being played for a deliberate effect.

Moore gleefully summarizes all that is wrong with America. We are done. There is nowhere to go but home, get in bed and pull the covers over your head. Eat that bucket of ice cream and the hell with the future. You won’t be here to see it, so why care?

Victoria Alexander

Member of Las Vegas Film Critics Society: www.lvfcs.org/. Victoria Alexander lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, and answers every email at victoria.alexander.lv@gmail.com. For a complete list of Victoria Alexander's movie reviews on Rotten Tomatoes go to: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/critic/victoria-alexander/movies. Victoria Alexander contributes to Films in Review (http://www.filmsinreview.com), Film Festival Today (http://filmfestivaltoday.com) and Las Vegas Informer (LVInformer.com).