First Hit: Michael Moore, in his own funny yet insightful way, reminds us that our unquenchable thirst for more stuff may lead our nation into consumptive oblivion.
Michael has a way to telling stories.
Generally I like the intent but I’m not always enamored with how or the way in which he tells the story on film. However, in this film his way of storytelling makes a very sad and horrible set of events seem interesting and accessible to a wide audience. He is not afraid to point fingers at both Republicans and Democrats alike, because they both approved the bailout.
Both parties approved the deregulation that led us into much of our national financial problems. Yes, the brunt of the deregulation blame is squarely with the Republicans (Reagan) but it is also the influence of election contributions to members of both parties and their re-election mentality which drove numerous bad decisions and “we the people” get to suffer for it today.
I do wish we would have gotten more information about some of the exotic financial instruments that major financial institutions use on Wall Street, but we didn't. The picture presented is that Wall Street financial companies are a basically a sophisticated gambling casino, which bet and lost our money and now we have to pay their debt.
The film presented a plethora of charts which were thrown on the screen but they went by so fast I couldn’t digest what they all meant and there was little explanation about each one. The grandiose attempts to get into AIG, GM (one last time), and other major financial houses is typical Michael Moore and, at times, funny.
I really enjoyed his driving in an armored car to these financial companies trying to get the tax payers, “our”, money back. And I enjoyed the police crime scene tape being wrapped around the buildings.
Some of the interviews were very enlightening and gave a wonderful perspective of how corrupt our government officials are when it comes to taking care of their personal needs versus our needs.
However, the truth of the story is this, capitalistic greed and our consumptive nature have driven us to this point and each of us needs to pay attention to our government and the freedoms they allow our financial businesses.
Michael Moore did a wonderful job of creating a picture of how we got ourselves into this financial mess. Although he doesn’t and couldn’t cover everything, the point he brings home is that capitalism has been trouncing our economy. And if we don’t come together and take our democratic ideals, as a nation, and really look at what a few have done, we’ll be in more trouble soon.
Overall: This film was entertaining and provocative and I left the theater shaking my head at our government’s inability to curb its own interests over their constituents interests.