Honolulu Weekly

Sicko / Health care in America is abysmal, insurance companies would rather let you die instead of being forced to pay for your care and there are others who have it far better than you could ever hope for.

Those are the central themes surrounding the new documentary, Sicko. For anybody who’s been afflicted with anything more than a cough or a hangover, the common answer should be a resounding, unenthusiastic, sarcastic chorus of, ‘No shit.’ But of course that isn’t the case, and for that reason, Michael Moore’s new film, which opened nationwide on Friday, might come as a surprise to some.

That’s where Moore, like him or loathe him, comes across as one of the more important of the incessant name-brand social commentators, simply because he is willing to introduce the subject to a mass audience, whether it comes from the misdeeds of corporate monopolies (The Big One), gun control (Bowling for Columbine) or the disastrous and possibly criminal missteps of our current administration (Fahrenheit 9/11). Where critics poke well-deserved holes in his arguments comes from his lack of a decisive solution or opinion other than simply pointing out that the situation we find ourselves in, well, sucks.

Worse, however, is the use of selective editing that Moore so often uses in his work, sometimes to the point where former supporters in interviews turn against his rhetoric. Sicko, his fifth full-length film, shows a kinder, gentler Moore who is less willing to ambush clueless receptionists and more notably, keeps himself out of the picture for the first 45 minutes.

It’s an effective tactic, particularly since there are undoubtedly those waiting to pounce at the first sign of ego or impropriety. It’s nearly impossible to suppress a reaction while watching example after example of the suffering caused to Americans unfairly denied care to which they were not only entitled, but also for which they had paid. Moore gambles (probably successfully) that repeated shots of those who have died or children who lived only after those involved fought and won against the bureaucratic system will elicit a sympathetic response.

This is why the first half of Sicko works so well, because it outlines what we, even as a self-centered, apathetic society, must know–that those in the U.S. without healthcare better pray nothing happens to them that chicken soup can’t fix, and those fortunate enough to have coverage should hope that their health problems don’t reach a level of severity where the insurance companies don’t want to find a way out, which Moore outlines, is entirely possible.

But Moore can’t resist staying out of his own movie for long, and his reappearance on the scene is rife with problems as he attempts to show us the path to a better system. He travels to foreign lands, jet-setting from Canada to Great Britain to show the luxurious and comforts of the citizen covered by socialized medicine. He then delves further into countries that we as Americans are supposed to distrust, specifically with France and Cuba, showing them in their healthy and well-cared-for glow.

It’s during these portions that Moore’s use of selective editing becomes most apparent and appalling. If Sicko is to be taken at face value, citizens of the aforementioned countries have nothing but good things to say about their health care system. Anybody who has spent longer than two weeks in any of these countries could probably cite instances to the contrary without even having to mention England’s dental history, though that usually seals the argument.

There’s no doubt about it–Moore has learned to back off from his grandstanding. But when he listens to stories in slack-jawed wonderment as ordinary citizens disclose stories of free treatment and cheap medicine, his feigned surprise and indignation comes off as disingenuous at best and condescending at worst, since it is obvious he didn’t pick these locations at random.

That being said, Sicko is a thoroughly interesting, passionate and even important film that should be viewed by everyone. If it ultimately fails to resonate with American audiences, it will only be because two decades of Moore’s polemic moralizing has rendered us immune.