FAHRENHYPE 9/11 (2004)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
After all the hoopla over Michael Moore's biased, propagandistic documentary, "Fahrenheit 9/11," the detractors came out to attack him, but not in full force. The worst claim Moore made in his film was that Iraq was never a threat to America (the Gulf War is a good example of such an erroneous claim). There was also the glaring omission that a certain pipeline was shut down in Afghanistan in 1998, though the U.S. and the Arabs were making oil profits from it. There is also the darling newspaper clipping that supposedly had a headline that read: "Al Gore won in Florida" (it was actually a letter to the editor). Unfortunately, the criticisms were mild compared to the fueling outrage that a Flint, Michigan man wearing a baseball cap had no business making documentaries in the first place (or maybe it was that Oscar acceptance speech that really riled everybody up). One of the most astute attacks came from writer Christopher Hitchens on the canceled show "Crossfire" - he called Moore nothing worse than a liar and someone who likes to stir the pot of the masses without doing any fact-checking. It is a segment like that should have ended up in this film but "Fahrenhype 9/11" lacks any major charge, and leaves no sting at all.
Most of "Fahrenhype 9/11" focuses on Michael Moore's claims and tries to debunk a few of them, though a substantial portion focuses on the war on terrorism post-9/11. Using interview footage of former New York mayor Ed Koch, actor Ron Silver ("What? He's Republican!") serving as narrator, and the witty repartee of Ann Coulter hardly persuade us of Moore's erroneous filmmaking habits. They expunge all outrage at the filmmaker, focusing on minor details that wouldn't bother a nine-year-old (although Moore's comment that terrorism is not problematic in America, as we are led to believe, brings out much needed fuel for the right-wingers).
There are choice moments involving a Marine, Sgt. Peter Damon, who felt his comments on the war in Moore's film were taken out of context; the Oregon state trooper who's dismayed he even appeared in a Michael Moore film; the school principal who felt that Bush acted "presidential" after sitting with the kids for seven minutes in the classroom, despite learning that America was under attack; and there are the Marines who feel that the fight for freedom in Iraq gives Moore justification to be critical. More footage of these concrete interviews would have helped the filmmakers' cause in debunking Michael Moore and his box-office documentary hit. A definition on what they think a documentary should be would've been beneficial. Hearing Ron Silver call the greatest propaganda film of all time, "Triumph of the Will," a masterpiece in comparison to Moore's film, which doesn't try to approximate the same level of propaganda, is to forget what the purpose of one film had over the other. Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will" was designed as a promotional Nazi party film, and it was too damn good. Some saw it as a brilliant film that helped a cause that resulted in the worst genocide of the 20th century. "Fahrenheit 9/11" was designed to unseat the President, pure and simple, and it failed.
And that is what director Alan Peterson and writer Dick Morris never acknowledge - Moore hates Bush and his policies and wanted to be sure Dubya wouldn't be re-elected - a propagandist often embellishes the truth to attain a grand political goal. Heck, isn't that why "Fahrenheit 9/11" did well at the box-office? Didn't the majority of the country feel they were lied to by our current administration? And didn't Bush and his cronies embellish the truth about the war? Moore tapped into the national consciousness, for better or worse. Wishful thinking, I suppose. The most outrageous charges these talking heads evoke are that Bush sat in his chair for five minutes, not seven, and that former Presidents Clinton and Carter did little to counterattack terrorism - they were buddies with the Arabs just like Bush Jr. and Sr. are. Oh, and don't forget: 860 billion dollars is not the equivalent of 7-8 percent of our economy. If "Fahrenhype 9/11" is the best case for defending the Republicans, President Bush and the ongoing war, then Michael Moore is not likely to go away.
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