As with any Michael Moore film, not evey reviewer gives him unbridled praise this week for "Fahrenheit 11/9".
The Michigan filmmaker's latest work, opening Friday, takes many shots at President Donald Trump and the media, as well as former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. (A video trailer is below.)
Reviewers are generally unimpressed, though the topical movie earns some praise. The Washington Post sees it as "a movie that means to inspire."
But in The Atlantic, David Sims writes: "It's a disjointed, occasionally powerful, often grating grab bag of recent political events." He calls the film "a mess that’s forgivable only because it does reflect the messy state of the world."
Fahrenheit 11/9 is a despairingly furious work aimed mostly at the Democratic establishment, pronouncing Clinton a mediocre candidate, bemoaning the lessons not learned from Bernie Sanders’s insurgent primary campaign, and criticizing Barack Obama for his tendency to compromise as president.
Moore’s disdain for President Trump is mostly contained to lazy shots about his (undeniably creepy) affection for his daughter Ivanka; he’s perhaps assuming that his audience will not need much convincing on Trump’s leadership deficiencies.
Fahrenheit 11/9 wanders hither and thither, lurching from the election recap to a postmortem of the Democratic Party.
Here are excerpts from five other reactions:
♦ 'Cheap, indulgent filmmaking:' Michael Moore wants to save us from ourselves. It's been his mission for a long time, a noble one, and it's obvious he is sincere. But as a filmmaker, Moore needs to save himself from his worst indulgences, which undercuts his good work. His new film, "Fahrenheit 11/9," showcases both the best and the worst of his filmmaking instincts. . . .
While Moore indicts the media for pandering to Trump for ratings, making a pretty penny off the reality show host's stunts, he does the same thing in "11/9." He cannot resist indulging in his own petty desires in the film, and you wish he had resisted such giggle-inducing montages, such as Trump's election night party soundtracked to opera or laying Trump speeches over Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will." It's cheap, indulgent filmmaking, and frankly, it's not funny, not even in a dark way. -- Katie Walsh, Chicago Tribune
♦ 'Peaks and valleys:' It was a lot of stuff I’d heard and seen before. . . . “Fahrenheit 11/9” has a structure of peaks and valleys. There is an abundance of “America is screwed” material. The sections on the Flint water scandal are infuriating. The “he was robbed” threnody for Bernie Sanders is considerably less compelling, but it raises valid points. -- Glenn Kenny, The New York Times
Michael Moore
♦ 'His usual schtick:' Moore can't resist tooting his own horn from time to time (at one point, he plays a 9-1-1 call in which Moore is apparently described as a "weapon"), and he gets in a couple of showy stunts, including a half-hearted attempt at a citizen's arrest. Whether those moments make you roll your eyes or clap your hands will depend on your tolerance for his usual schtick. -- Angie Han, Mashable
♦ 'Means to inspire us:' Patience is what the movie demands. . . . Gradually, like an oil tanker changing direction, “Fahrenheit 11/9” painstakingly pivots, from a movie that seems to be working overtime to depress us to a movie that means to inspire us. -- Michael O'Sullivan, The Washington Post (2.5 out of 4 stars)
♦ 'A potent chill:' For a while, the Flint story takes over the movie, and that’s disquieting in two ways. The events themselves are horrific beyond words, but the viewer starts to wonder where this is all heading. Maybe Moore should have made an entire movie about the Flint water crisis. . . .
Yet if you stick with the movie, it starts to acquire a potent chill. . . . Yet the movie, in its way, summons something ominous and powerful. It’s not a screed — it’s a warning. -- Owen Gleiberman, Variety
Here's a two-minute trailer for the film:
