Michael Moore - "Sicko" 07/21/07

This film is much MORE than all the buzz about it suggests. It is brilliant.

Yes, it tackles the travesty of for-profit healthcare companies making decisions about people's healthcare based on their own profit motive. And it tackles it well. But it does so much more than that. It asks "who are we?" that we allow this.

It is a follow-up to one of his earlier books, "Dude, Where's My Country?" It was a very moving experience - not just because of empathy for the people victimized by "the system" but as a call to service - to take back what was once a country "for the people" and make it that once again.

It contrasts love and kindness in other countries to greed and avarice in ours. A tough message, to be sure, but one that needs to be told again and again until it is no longer valid. And it delivers it without getting shrill, without being overly accusatory of anyone. It just lays out the big picture and how the design of the system results in inappropriate output and says "we need to redesign the system."

Kudos to Michael Moore.

Excerpt from Roger Ebert's review:
It's a different Michael Moore in "Sicko." He still wears the baseball cap, but he's onscreen less, not so cocky, not going for so many laughs. He simply tells one story after another about Americans who are sick, dying or dead because we have an undemocratic, profit-gouging health care system. Moore's films usually make conservatives angry. This one is likely to strike home with anyone, left or right, who has had serious illness in the family. Conservative governments in Canada, England and France all support universal health care; the United States is the only developed nation without it.

Award:    Michael Moore Documentary Film "Sicko" 

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