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869 reviews in total

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187 out of 265 people found the following review useful:
overall, he makes a fair point, 13 February 2004

Author: Richard Cross from Leeds, England

Whatever you may throw at Michael Moore's methods, there are some points made in the film that are valid.

FACT: The United States has a gun-related homicide rate that is totally disproportionate to its population when compared to every other country in the world.

By the end of the film, however, Mr. Moore has already discounted the ownership of guns as a cause, and the blame lies firmly at the feet of the selective and sensationalist media.

By far the most insightful comments in the film are made by Marilyn Manson - namely that there are certain businesses and politicians in the United States that capitalise on on fear.

I don't see this as an anti-gun film, but more an observation of a country that is so completely gripped by fear, that it is spiraling downwards into deep and dangerous paranoia. That this fear is driven by certain forces for profit is sickening and it needs to be uncovered.

When I see so-called 'gun nuts' or apparent racists being interviewed, I feel nothing but pity for them. Their views have been formed by nothing less than the media saturation they are exposed to on a daily basis.

I guess these things are far more apparent to those of us who live outside the USA and witness the continual aggressive acts it perpetrates upon countries that are far too small and weak to defend themselves.

Watch this America, then "South Park, the Movie" and after that take a good long look in the mirror.

10/10

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144 out of 205 people found the following review useful:
A guerrilla for non violence, 14 December 2002
Author: Chris Knipp from Berkeley, California

`Bowling for Columbine,' is a very thought provoking film.

Perhaps the first thought it provokes in any US resident is that the most sensible thing he or she could possibly do is move forthwith to Canada. It's nearby, they speak English almost indistinguishable from standard American, it feels `lighter over there,' you get government health care, there are plenty of guns but very little killing, and you don't even have to lock your doors.

The fundamental question `Bowling for Columbine' asks is: What's responsible for the exceptionally high level of killing in America? Not a lot of guns, Moore points out, because other countries have that. Not a violent history, because other countries have that. Not a love of violent movies, video games, and so forth, because other countries love all that too. Not poverty, unemployment, and ethnic diversity, because lots of countries have more poverty and Canada has as much ethnic diversity and more unemployment. Two things, according to Moore, are primary causes: the US media, which, as he shows, fans up fear constantly among the American populace; and the government in Washington, which solves everything by bombing people somewhere. There's a third thing that emerges more subtly: a gun culture, which leads to the absurd notion of self-defense, perpetuating the violence and the fear and the racism. In this the leading force is that powerful lobby, the National Rifle Association. The result of this lethal combination delineated by Moore, particularly since 9/11, is that Americans aren't very happy people: they live in a constant state of rage, perturbation, and fear, when they're not disolved in tears for the dead who're falling in the houses and streets and schools of the country on a daily basis.

`Bowling for Columbine' isn't ultimately very cheery or uplifting stuff. True, it has lots of laughs, but most of them are ironic - a little sick-making, when you think about it -- and at American expense. Those of us who live in the USA and don't actually regard moving to Canada (or somewhere else) as a real option, aren't walking out of this polemical documentary feeling any too cheerful. One may quarrel with Moore's style, though it seems questionable that so many reviewers have expressed disapproval of his personal appearance (what's sloppy dressing got to do with it?). One can hardly quarrel with most of Moore's basic facts or the urgency of his subject or his commitment to it. Because of its significance to Americans on both personal and national levels, "Bowling for Columbine" has to be considered the most important (and it's becoming the most watched) US documentary film in many a year. This is being recognized in all sorts of ways, first of all with the special jury prize at Cannes. We shall see what the Academy has to say.

It's impressive that Moore and two young men seriously injured at Columbine were able by their confrontations to shame Wal-Mart into taking handguns and ammunition out of their stores - and Moore appears to have been surprised and impressed by this result himself.

Moore has seemed crude and simplistic and confrontational in the past. His methods have not radically changed, but they've modulated into something subtler and less self-serving, such that he has an ability to talk more easily with potential adversaries -- bank employees giving out rifles with new accounts; Michigan militiamen; even Charlton Heston, the haughty President of the National Rifle Association, who invites Moore into his house to film a conversation. True, Heston ends up walking out of the room after a while, but he doesn't have Moore thrown out. Nor does Wal-Mart. This is significant. One is tempted to call Moore's methods (as he wields them today) not crude and simplistic and confrontational, but direct, simple, and honest. There's something unimposing and Middle American about his overweight slouch and scruffy baseball cap crowned head. If he lives in a house worth close to $2 million in New York now, you can't tell it from looking at him, and that consciously maintained persona, if we choose to see it thus, aids him in moving through Littleton, Colorado and Windsor, Ontario, and the other places where he got the footage for this devastating, yet simple film. For credibility among US gun-toters like Heston, Moore has an ace in the hole: he's an expert marksman and a lifetime member of the NRA.

Heston walks out because he hasn't good answers; in fact he really hasn't any answers at all. His explanations for why the USA is so violent are ones Moore has already discounted, and he can't justify his brazenly fronting for the National Rifle Association in Colorado and Michigan right after the child murders by children in those two states. Marilyn Manson (the artist accused of complicity at Columbine because the young killers liked his music) in contrast has not only good answers, but also the greatest zinger in the film. When asked what he would have said to the youth at Columbine after the murders, he says: `Not a word. I'd have listened to them. That's what nobody has been doing.' In between telling interviews, Moore has various ways of documenting contexts: an animation, recited statistics with images, and astonishing film clips like the Fifties one of cops admiring how realistic some kids' toy guns are, and the one from a metal-detector company pushing for dress codes in schools, showing a boy with baggy pants unloading a whole arsenal. What's laughable are all such solutions that don't even begin to get at the problem - that are just profiteering from chaos and insecurity.

It's encouraging that so many people are seeing and commenting on this movie. When it was over, I wished the lights would go up and there'd be a discussion group held right there in the auditorium. There was a lot to talk about. Not everything was by any means clear, nor were all the facts to be bought without question. But in one way or another, `Bowling for Columbine' brings up all the most central issues in America today. Michael Moore makes you laugh and cry; but most important, he makes you think.

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120 out of 186 people found the following review useful:
A movie that should be mandatory for all politicians, 16 March 2004

Author: octomagneto from Portland, OR, USA

Yes Mr. Moore may lean left, and yes he may not be the most objective documentarian.

However the facts stand: America has many, many more deaths attributed to guns than any other nation. It's a sad truth.

Unfortunately Mr. Moore has been vilified for asking why. And typical of the "head-stuck-in- the-sand" mentality of the far right, they are angry for his work, not at the facts.

This movie is well done and if you're left, right, in-between, gun nut, or responsible gun owner it is definitely worth viewing.

I suspect most of the negative comments posted about this movie at IMDB and similar sites are by people who haven't seen the movie. They're just angry at what they perceive the movie to be.

It isn't a movie about gun control. It's a movie that merely ask why so many deaths.

Enjoy.

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67 out of 116 people found the following review useful:
Fascinating, 21 October 2002

Author: Wayne Malin (wwaayynnee51@hotmail.com) from United States

Documentary by Michael Moore about the NRA and America's fascination with guns. Much of the footage deals with Columbine and the case in which a 6 year old boy shot to death a 6 year old girl. It all culminates in an interview with the head of the NRA Charlton Heston.

Riveting, chilling, hilarious and absolutely incredible movie despite what your views are on the gun issue. Moore's views are definetely anti-gun but he does try to show the opposite side also. Moore questions why there are so many killings in America by guns and almost none in other countries. He gives no real answers to this question but he raises a lot of interesting points and theories. I walked out of the theatre very shaken but, in a way, exhilirated. This is truly a great documentary.

I'm not going to review this fully--it's a movie you should see for yourself. A definite must-see.

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98 out of 179 people found the following review useful:
A liberal's critique, 2 August 2004

Author: Jenny (illusoryjane) from Salt Lake City, UT

This movie was entertaining and interesting, but in certain ways it left me wanting. Michael Moore himself is somewhat irritating, and I found myself wishing he kept more to the background than he does. At the same time, the conclusions that he draws are compelling and pragmatic. This movie was not designed to be an argument. It was not designed to sway the viewer. It was designed to fuel the fire of the already convinced. Though I think that this is Moore's intent (concluded from interviews I've read), I feel that goal could be reached at the same time as convincing a few fence-sitters, and that would have made the film more powerful.

I have two main complaints regarding this movie:

First, I felt that Michael Moore sometimes crossed lines in his interviews that in no way seemed to further his cause or drive his point home. He interviews people as though looking for his answer, not their answer, and particularly seemed to be trying to strike a blow at the conservative masses. I thought this distracted the genuinity and plausibility of the conclusions that he drew. It must be said that the conclusions that Moore drew are of a nature that strikes at conservative politics. However, I felt that the facts he represented spoke for themselves, and that the blows should not have been dealt to conservative interviewees by asking questions designed to get emotional responses out of them.

Second, I found some of the statistics needed to be qualified with per capitas or percentages. When comparing the United States to England, for instance, it is important to take population differences and density into consideration. Straight statistics do not apply. I think the statistics were somewhat skewed by this oversight, however according to some rough guesstimates I made, it wouldn't have diminished Moore's point, only made it less dramatic (which would, indeed, have strengthened his case).

These two complaints hint at an even larger problem, however, and that is this: Because Moore presents his case in this way, he can never hope to have his message truly heard by anyone who isn't already on his side.

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64 out of 114 people found the following review useful:
One of the most thought provoking movies., 7 May 2003
Author: emma502 from iowa city, iowa

What has become of the United States? Is there any difference from the United States that was formed by Puritans and tried to escape from persecution under the British flag? Has there always been a different mentality for the American than that of any other nationality of individual? After September 11th Michael Moore the director and writer set out to make a documentary that addressed these and other embedded questions that are addressed everyday in our news media, school systems, homes, stores and street corners. Attempting to address all sides of the issues as a person of the media Moore used not only his own experiences, his connection to the NRA, but also other persons opinions that ranged from Charlton Hesston, the well known president of the NRA and famous actor, to the average American that was confronted with the violent acts that resulted from the accessibility of fire arms. This documentary took a new approach to the display of information. Not only was animation used to explain history, American's imbedded fear of their own neighbors, but it also used rock music ( gave a beat or a pulse to the film that progress from slow to fast as the intensity of the issues progressed), sarcasm, interviews, and casual conversations. Moore traveled the country to talk to all those that make up the spectrum of the American society, he traveled to the scenes of some of the more recent American tragedies, made impromptu stops in corporations such as Kmart (where the boys from Columbine bought the ammunition used in the shooting), and traveled to Canada to get an outside or foreign opinion. The idea was to move away from the documentary style of `talking heads'; he wanted a film that would not only touch a chord with the American people but one that would also be readily watched. This idea also made the documentary, that there was too much influence placed on the `words of the professional' or the ` findings of the expert'; that these findings and misleadings flooded the news at night to increase the amount of fear that the average American has as it looked for a scape-goat to blame. The information that Moor presented in his documentary did not technically follow a pre-described narrative, but followed more of a form where the audience was left areas to think and to breakdown the information. Elements of the circular narrative were the foundation of the film, where similar elements in opinions and the common American we continually addressed. Yet, the only problem that could be addressed is one of the ways in which Moore collected some of his data. Some might see a use of trickery or manipulation was used on his part to get the responses and such passion-filled opinions stated. While others would see the same information in the light that no instigation was needed, that people have these strong beliefs, opinions and are willing to talk about them but they lack the examples or understanding of the topic to take a well informed stand on one side or the other. Such a problem is not new in the world of documentaries when controversial data is presented to the public. Moore did a great job of presenting a delicate subject to the American people and was deserving of the Academy Award for the project.

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18 out of 25 people found the following review useful:
Yes, Canadians lock their doors as much as anyone else, Mr. Moore, 24 June 2007

Author: Mandemus from The Armory, Ape City

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

When film makers or critics of any kind stray too far from home and make generalizations, they need to be very careful. I don't find that Moore is too concerned about making careful observation in general, so I don't think he cares much about stereotyping others.

His trip to Toronto in Bowling for Columbine was laughable, given the statements he makes about "Canadians". Moore suggests that Canada is a safer country because he pulls on a few doors in the city of Toronto and finds them to be unlocked. Moore has a penchant for stereotypes. If he were a bigot for the extreme right, I would be frightened of him. Canada is not just Toronto, no more than New York represents the US. And a few unlocked doors in a city does not make your point.

I actually believe that a country with fewer guns will have less casual gun crime per capita, and I believe that the US has much to learn in that regard from us in Canada.

Unfortunately, I came away from this film more with more distasteful feelings about the film maker than the subject material, which is too bad. To me, this was a film about Michael Moore, Bully. The bullying personality type is pervasive in his work and life story, and distracts me from the serious topics that he wants to side with.

Moore, and us viewers, would do well to remember Woody Allen's cautionary, sarcastic line from Annie Hall (1977) when he said "I'm a bigot, but it's OK, because I'm a bigot for the left."

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113 out of 215 people found the following review useful:
Technique = 8... Honesty in Presentation = 0, 12 July 2006

Author: Craig Estrella (Surecure) from Toronto, Canada

First let me say that, as a person (a Canadian for anybody who might question if all the negative reviews are from the USA) who doesn't care for guns and has no interest in them -- I've never even held one -- upon first viewing of "Bowling for Columbine" I was a fan. I loved this film. I even bought the DVD. I thought it was a brilliant documentary and that its presentation of the facts was spot on.

However, the scene where Moore talks about a bomber on display in the desert and the army plaque beneath it always made me wonder exactly how honest he was being, since what he claimed the plaque said sounded too outrageous to me. It kept on grating me until about a year later I began to actually research his film and found that nearly every single thing Moore presents in BFC is either heavily manipulated facts or bald-faced deceptions.

Take the scene of him getting a gun for opening an account at a bank. What he does not show is that there was a criminal background check including photo ID check and an FBI background check. Then, to get the gun, he had to open a 10 year Certificate of Deposit... basically he had to deposit nearly $1000 before he could get the gun, not the smartest idea compared to just buying a gun if that's the only intent. Even then, when Moore gets his gun and asks about the safety of handing out guns in the bank, the audience is duped into forgetting a large portion of Moore's handing-out-a-gun-at-a-bank safety joke: the bank doesn't supply the ammunition!

You even have his little cartoon where he tries to link the NRA to the KKK... never mind that him saying the NRA was formed the same year that the KKK was declared an illegal organization is 100% wrong... never mind that the NRA was actually formed by Northern Yankee's who fought AGAINST slavery... never mind that the NRA was primarily created in reaction to Southern laws that would ban blacks from owning firearms (the exact opposite of the cartoon's suggestion the NRA wanted to suppress blacks and leave them defenseless)... never mind that the cartoon is a South Park rip-off, presented after an interview with South Park creator Matt Stone in order to make it seem like the cartoon was made by the creators of South Park. I mean, no wonder Matt Stone hates Moore and made him a target of insults in his "Team America: World Police" movie. Talk about complete deception from every angle.

What's worse is that he is even hypocritical in how he talks about America's culture of fear and how the media tries to instill fear in the population, and yet that is EXACTLY what BFC is: a film that presents manipulated facts in order to create fear. Probably the best refutation of BFC one can find is the in-depth article by Dave Kopel called "Bowling Truths" that literally shreds BFC from beginning to end, showing it to be -- as he puts it -- more of a 'mockumentary' in the vein of "This is Spinal Tap" than a serious documentary outlining anything close to reality.

In terms of gun control issues, if you really want an intelligent look at the problems of gun control, check out the episode of Penn & Teller's Bullsh*t on gun control. Now THAT is an intelligent and more importantly an HONEST delving into gun control. But if you are looking for facts and honesty in subject matter, you couldn't find a worse choice than BFC.

BFC is insulting to anybody who would be willing to take the time and educate themselves on exactly how honest Moore is. If you think BFC is truthful and honest, go read Kopel's article (readily available on the net) and you'll see how much Moore stretches the truth. I mean, even the film's title is deceptive since -- as even the preliminary police report states -- the two shooters at Columbine never showed up for bowling that morning! I still own the DVD, if only to show people a perfect example of how sheep can be led around if they don't stop and ask whether what they are hearing is real. BFC offers little reality and a lot of political brouhaha that does little for intelligent discussion on gun control. In that, he has hurt the gun control movement more than he has helped it.

(And by the way, people in Canada do lock their doors. I have to wonder how many doors he had to try in order to get his shots of every door being open.)

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23 out of 36 people found the following review useful:
Triumph of the Swill, 29 August 2003

Author: BankBastard from Massachusetts, US

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

*Spoilers coming your way * I am practically speechless.... this movie was one of the most dishonest, manipulative pieces of tripe I have ever encountered. It was a despicable compilation of lies, twisted facts, misconstrued data, spliced footage and disingenuous narration. I can't even begin to list this movies specific faults. Michael Moore, a bloated crackpot, sways the audience with a totally biased film. This won an Oscar? For documentary? But it's fiction, not documentary, and moreover an ego trip. His whole bleeding heart agenda was nauseating, especially the leaving pictures of people on steps. His quiet, humble demeanor is a veneer over an arrogant, loudmouth bigot. Half of the interviews in here are with people that don't speak for half a percent of the American population. As if everyone who owns a gun is a wacko that kills for pleasure, or out of sheer rage. Please. What about the interviews with farmers who shoot wolves that kill their livestock, or rape victims who carry small arms, or hunters, or sportsmen? My grandmother owns a gun because she lives in a seedy area, rife with crime. She is also handicapped and cannot move fast. Well, what if someone tried to attack her or rob her? She'd be in an awful mess if the phone were not readily available. And does everybody with a gun have to shoot somebody? No, of course not. A lot of people are content with shooting cans, going to the shooting range, or hunting. Not everybody is a "gun nut". The statistics used are inaccurate at best. Hand gun killing also includes police putting down criminals and innocent civilians acting in self defense. What about all the knife murders or beatings? I'd like to see those stats. It's good that K-mart no longer sells bullets, now people can't get them anymore, especially extremely rare 9 mm rounds. Next lets hope they stop selling knives, so all murders using knives will be stopped. Way to blame K-mart and not the two ding dongs who shot up their school. This movie makes me want to be a lifetime member of the NRA just to spite Moore (Yeah, I know he is a member too, don't bother mentioning it, he's just a clown). The whole Heston segment was totally fabricated as well. After the Columbine bit, the "From my cold dead hands" quote was used over and over, as if he said it right then. That speech was from over a year after the massacre, in South Carolina, in response to being given a hand-crafted musket (Just look, the damn thing is in his hand). The NRA rally had also been planned months ahead of the massacre and to just not show up would have isolated the thousands of NRA members in Colorado and cost tens of thousands of dollars. He acts like Heston took a jet to Colorado in order to anger the victims as speedily as possible. Which leads us to Mr. Heston's unfair bashing. It's also easy to overlook Heston's history of marching and being active in the civil rights movement. He even marched with MLK Jr. So essentially, unless the whole segregation issue was solved seamlessly, with no violence, Heston's comments about violence being rooted in ethic mixing are just about right, but the way it was edited makes him look like some sort of monster. Bravo, you seething blob. Isn't he trying to shove the whole KKK thing down our throats anyway? Isn't that violence stemming from racial/ethnic mixing? As I seem to recall the KKK was trying to end ethnic mixing by murdering black people. Hmm...strange. And if you think their isn't violence still because of racial tension, you need to pull your head out of your ass. That whole interview is also extremely choppy, and highly edited, leading us to believe Heston is an inane racist. Most of his interviews are like that. He will ask some wise-ass question, then cut before it can be answered, leaving us to believe the person about to respond was some buffoon. Also, Moore pretends like America's history of violence is nonexistent, and compares it to Germany and the Holocaust, trying to lessen our sordid past. Guess what assclown, Hitler once said he admired the Indian Wars because of how efficiently we massacred Native Americans. Moore is a jackass, do not allow yourself to be addled by his ultraliberal BS. By the way, sweet rip-off of "Good Morning Vietnam" with the montage of violent images and "facts" over "What a wonderful world" by Louis Armstrong. I love the "Osama Bin Laden used his CIA knowledge to murder 3,000 people on September 11th" quote. I guess Osama asked the CIA how to hijack planes and crash them into buildings, as part of the usual CIA curriculum. A sizable chunk of people who like this movie just hate the Bush administration/conservatives anyway. Another large chunk of people who love this are just fruitloops who hate the United States to begin with. I am not going to go into detail, as I am running out of room, but plenty of lobotomy patients hailing from merry old England and Canada wrote some pretty scathing things about the United States. Well, here is one for you. For the most part "Bowling" is all a bunch of lies, and people just don't realize because Michael Moore pretends to be such a crusader. For someone who claims to champion the rights of the people by "exposing" corruption and lying, he is a filthy hypocrite. This movie sucked, and people shouldn't be molded into his little disciples just by watching this inflammatory crap. 1/10: Gutter ball. If you disagree, it might be time for you to join us in reality.

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26 out of 42 people found the following review useful:
should convince any impartial viewer..., 14 May 2004

Author: proud_highway from north shore

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

that michael moore is an obnoxious self-aggrandizing windbag... an incredibly overrated director who combines the crude rhetorical style of conservative media hacks like ann coulter with the nutty politics and unconvincing "millionaire spokesman for the common man" persona of ralph nader... basically just a left-wing version of rush limbaugh, only fatter.

anyone who honestly thinks that "bowling for columbine" is an accurate and thoughtful investigation of violent crime in american society does not live in the united states (as the demographic data on this website clearly illustrates) or is ideologically predisposed to agree with any crackpot theory that moore spits out. *obligatory spoiler warning* the critically acclaimed documentary is a rambling, poorly-focused melange of isolated statistics, erroneous insinuations (including a crappy cartoon suggesting that the NRA was established in conjunction with the ku klux klan), lame anecdotal evidence, sappy appeals to the audiences' emotions, and incredibly dull diatribes about irrelevant topics like air pollution and health care reform.

moore does, however, manage to pose an interesting question... why does canada, where gun ownership is common and violence-laced american forms of entertainment are popular, have lower violent crime rates than the united states? unfortunately, his laughably inept attempts to answer that question leave much to be desired. in "bowling for columbine" we are told that students sometimes shoot their classmates because k-mart sells cheap bullets, the CIA armed paramilitary groups in central america during the 1980s, and television news programs somehow turn ordinary people into racist lunatics. with stunningly tortured logic, moore also decides to blame former president clinton for declaring war on a murderous serbian dictator as well as dick clark for owning a restaurant that hired a single mother on welfare.

in a disingenuous interview with NRA president charlton heston, moore crosses the line between mildly entertaining leftist buffoon and self-righteous jerk. with pointed questions and shameful editing, moore portrays the aging actor, who suffers from alzhiemer's disease, as a bigoted old fossil. take a minute to read heston's biography on this website... he was an active member of the civil rights movement when moore was probably sitting in his parents' garage eating paint chips and sniffing model glue.

the target audience of smirking gullible foreigners, aging hippies, and naive latte-sipping college students will probably enjoy "bowling for columbine"... but anyone who does not already assume that america is overrun by heavily-armed, delusional sociopaths will find it tiresome and unconvincing... (2/10)

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