TITLE: Review: Sicko (2007) AUTHOR: Joe Johnson DATE: 11:26:00 AM ----- BODY:
Dir: Michael Moore

Perhaps it sounds condescending, especially when speaking about a director who received an Oscar for one film and set the documentary box office record for another, but Michael Moore has grown up... a little. Moore is a personality - never shy about using the documentary format for propaganda purposes. But Sicko introduces a new version of the progressivist filmmaker. Rather than being a blatant illustrated pamphlet for - or against - a social evil, Sicko embodies a slightly different voice. Those who think a documentary should be the equivalent of journalism may not recognize this change. Michael Moore is no reporter. But rather than being an editorial cartoonist, he's evolved into something like a columnist: no different then a George Will, Cal Thomas or Fareed Zakaria.

Well, maybe a little different.

Michael Moore has moved from the Oliphant cartoons of Bowling for Columbine and The Big One, to a delicious blend of Andy Rooney, Dave Berry and Noam Chomsky. Sicko is a funny, intelligent, satirical and poignant film about the problems in the American health care system. And there are problems.

Moore has a gift for being both charming and disarming. He manages to find priceless footage that reveals the extreme problems, whether it is Phil Knight's acceptance of underage workers or President Bush's deer-in-a-headlight response to the September 11th attacks. The footage in Sicko contains a few of those moments, but most of them come from innocent responses to, seemingly, innocent questions.

Sicko is a carefully constructed, well-paced and tempered series of questions; many of them seem more legitimate and open than in previous Moore films. In a twist, he removes himself from the story as much as he can. It's about common people in common situations. Although the terrible, faceless corporations are indicted, this is more of an exploration of the way people cope with sickness in the United States and abroad. And therein is the film's genius.

By removing all but his voice and his filmmaking for a large portion of the movie, Moore allows something that is lacking in most of his prior works - the subjects have their own voice. For some reason, Moore moves away from the usual demonization of individual companies toward the thing he generally argues for in society: populism. Although he assembles and crafts the overall text, the quotations and references are distinct voices.

This becomes most striking in Moore's trip to Europe. Rather than being overtly sarcastic, he merely asks simple, plausible questions from an unknowing American. There's a subtle innocence to his interviews. The outrage and perplexity comes with the responses of truly innocent participants of the socialized health care programs in England and France. Without saying anything overtly critical, they betray a sense of wonder and confusion at the American system. Some doctors politely, and provocatively, question the ethics of a healthcare system that's priority is anything other than the well being of the patient.

Sicko's freshness is almost entirely from content and editorial decisions. The technical aspects and grammar haven't changed from earlier works, and could even be viewed as a step back from the iconic imagery of Fahrenheit 9/11. But Sicko may be the first Michael Moore film since Roger & Me to be truly provocative for its substance and the quality of the question being explored. Whatever a viewer may feel toward Moore, there's something more wrong, more complex and unsettling in his subject. And as viewers leave this film they will be talking more about the content than the character on the posters.
**** of *****

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