The Big One

Roger & Me’s Michael Moore videotapes his own tour to promote his best-selling book, Downsize This!, and the results are both energizing and exasperating. Energizing because virtually no one else in the U.S. mainstream is dealing as directly, honestly, comprehensively, and confrontationally with the outsize corporate greed that has been eroding the quality of American life; exasperating because Moore deals with it all in terms of humor, which often short-circuits his discourse by turning it into light entertainmentcause for bitter amusement and more cynicism rather than for actual change. Only during a few moments of this 1997 moviemost noticeably a radio interview with Studs Terkeldoes he put the brakes on his banter and give us his message straight. With or without the banter, what he has to say is indispensable, yet it seems that the more we laugh the more we revel in our own impotence and helplessness. 90 min. (JR)

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