Sicko - B+

In theaters starting June 29th. Rated PG-13, 113 minutes.

Michael Moore is a talented filmmaker with a penchant for straw men and hyperbole. In Sicko he takes aim at the healthcare system in the United States, comparing and contrasting it with socialized medicine in Canada, England, France and Cuba. His basic premise is that the US should provide universal health care paid for by the government, and claims that we are the only Western democracy that does not do so. The film argues that the country should pull together and 'think in terms of we, not me' on this issue, and, presumably pay higher taxes and pay our doctors less and we'll have a perfect universal healthcare system. As with all of his films (Roger & Me, Bowling for Columbine, and Fahrenheit 9/11), there is some truth to parts of the picture that he shows, which makes for an entertaining yet skewed movie experience.

Like a magician, he takes leaps and hides things to accomplish his illusions. The primary foils in Sicko are US HMO's and the politicians that helped establish them (Nixon) and perpetuate the system (all of them). As you might imagine, there are myriad tragic anecdotal health care stories in the United States, a country of 300 million people. Surely there are similar tragic anecdotal stories in all of the countries he shows as shining lights of healthcare, but he doesn't worry with that inconvenient truth (rim shot). The stories Moore uses are compelling and moving. While I agree that HMO's are terrible and that a system that incentivizes denial letters over people's health is inherently flawed and needs to be changed, I don't agree that socialized health care is a perfect system (although it might work in the US in some form).

The juxtaposition of someone being denied a medically necessary procedure and free healthcare from attractive and smiling physicians and nurses obviously leads you to the conclusion that governmental health care is better than the US system, which leaves 45 million uninsured and several million afflicted with an HMO. The scenes in the other countries are funny/sad because of the excellent care that is being shown at no immediate cost to the recipient.

Another downfall of Moore's films is the tendency to overreach on his points, which ultimately hurts the overall impact of the film. He has two of these moments in Sicko. The first is a dinner party in France with Americans living there. They gush about the free health care, the 5 weeks of paid vacations, the state provided nannies (who even do your laundry), the 35 hour work week, and all of the other perks of living in France (never mind the banlieus and Islamic demographic trends). He goes on and on showing the greatness of this system without showing the real cost it has, either in taxes or in national productivity. The second overreach is his use of 3 people who went to ground zero on 9/11 to volunteer. They have been denied care from the $50 million fund set up for volunteers (Moore fails to explore why) and he takes them to Guantanamo Bay to get the same care (state of the art) that the prisoners there do. That stunt is actually funny and drives home his point. Where he goes askew is when he takes them to Cuba for world class healthcare and has them go to a firehouse as returning heroes. The fawning and sycophantic portrait of a communist country is a joke.

I will admit to having my viewpoint on this issue challenged. Moore says repeatedly that a society is judged by how it treats its less fortunate, and I agree. He also quotes De Toqueville in saying that America's greatest strength is its ability to correct its course. The most effective scenes are with Michael Benn, a former member of British Parliament, who speaks knowledgeably about democracy and healthcare and the confluence of the two.

This is definitely worth seeing, and I am really looking forward to Doctor's comments or separate review of this one.

Viewing Note: I had the odd experience of talking in person to President Bush and seeing this movie with a sold-out house of hard core liberals in the same week. The pitcher in the gay couple sitting in front of me was a 'yepper', who nodded vociferously and said 'yep' or purred an emotional 'wow' at every single possible point. The GWB potshots were met with cheers and it got long applause at the end.