WHERE TO INVADE NEXT (Michael Moore). Some subtitles. 120 minutes. Opens Friday (February 26). See listing. Rating: NN
Back in faux-naïf mode after Capitalism: A Love Story, beloved filmmaker Michael Moore criss-crosses the globe in search of successful nations for America to invade.
Relax, kids. He’s not really advocating for a military occupation of a foreign nation. The title’s just a clever way of getting your attention. Moore’s more interested in planting a flag and stealing the best sociopolitical ideas of other countries – Italy’s paid vacations, Norway’s more humane prison system, Finland’s better schools, Tunisia’s free health care for women, Iceland’s gender-balanced banking system.
All of these things are good and worth exploring, but the haphazard assembly of this film made me wonder whether this project might be better served broken up as a season of television. There’s clearly a lot more here than the two-hour running time allows.
And Moore’s shtick of gee-whizzing his way through every interview – and in his voice-over – undermines the doc’s value. He’s never really been that convincing as a rube anyway.
