Popcorn, Soda, and Goobers - Movie and DVD Reviews and Film Commentary

Sicko (imdb | dvd)

It seems that this year’s Academy Award crop of “Documentary Features” all revolve around the War in Iraq with the exception of War Dance and Michael Moore’s Sicko. It’s a nice to see that there are some directors out who are looking for subject matter outside of the botched war. But, that’s not to say that Sicko is any less scary.

This is a chilling documentary that looks into the state of health care in the United States and which attempts to debunk the typical political rhetoric that we hear about single payer/socialized health care systems in other countries, namely Canada, Great Britain, and France.

Unfortunately, Michael Moore’s presentation is a little weak and this documentary, outside of its very relevant and poignant subject matter, provides very little value. It’s 2 hours long, but seems more like four 30 minute movies at the same time. Basically, he alternates between health insurance horror stories and interviews with citizens in socialized health care utopias. The movie ends up dragging and feels more like propaganda than anything else especially given the fact that he does nothing to acknowledge any sort of criticisms of socialized medicine. Instead, whenever he heads out of the US, he finds luxurious, state of the art hospitals, smiling patients, and 100% efficient service.

Now, I respect the fact that Michael Moore has found a subject so important to societal issues in America. But, his methods seem more bent on inflaming his viewers than truly informing through his documentary. The scariest part of the movie is the part he doesn’t mention. The horror stories that he finds to illustrate his point on private health care come from people who all had health insurance. In the US, millions of citizens aren’t covered by any health insurance at all. They would not even have had the “good fortune” of being denied life saving coverage. Unfortunately, Moore is too busy putting together tear jerking stories and cleverly edited clips of politicians to really address the details of the problems in health care in the United States. And, while he goes off around the world demonstrating how perfect socialized health care systems, he offers little if any truly constructive message in his documentary.

I feel bad criticizing this documentary. I really do. The American health care system is broken. And, I’m not just some Republican Michael Moore hater. I do believe that the government AND the private sector need to find a way to work together to improve coverage and service for all of us. Proper health care ought to be considered a basic human right. I commend Michael Moore for attempting to bring this to the the public’s attention. I just think he went about it all wrong and cheapened what is a very real issue in all our lives.

2-2.5 out of 5 insurance claims paid