Top 10 documentaries #5 = Fahrenheit 9/11

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So Michael Moore, the fat, bloated lefty with the annoying likewise head that polarized America with his baseball capped documentaries that were less than supportive of the Republicans, wobbling down Main Street like the Stay Puft Man in Ghostbusters taking the applause of the lefteratti for his public disobedience. He made his name with Roger & Me, a doco about the state of Detroit and its water supply before directing a satire about Canadian politics and then returned to documentaries with The Big One ( and best not mention Lucky numbers). Bowling for Columbine put him back on top before 911 happened, conspiracy theorist and lovers of funny documentaries alike greatly anticipating his take on September 11. Moore’s strength is his humor of him being part of the story and injecting mirth into his take on real time events, even 911, laughs and gasps aplenty here. He doesn’t say America or Israel planned 911 but prefers to highlight Americas incompetence for allowing it to happen, seemingly right under their noses, and then pour his ire on to them for allowing the decision to turn the ’War on Terror’ onto un-expecting Iraqis and Afghans, bombs to bits. He puts the case for Saudi planning and funding this attack rather than those guys. I agree with him. George ‘Dubya’ Bush is the star of the piece by even out hamming Moore as his rather phlegmatic approach to the War on Terror aggravated a hell of a lot of people in the world, from the outrageous lies forced upon Colin Powell to repeat in the U.N to the vulgar attack on Iraq, Moore standing outside of The Capital building asking how many Senator’s and congressman have packed off their kids to fight the war makes you grin, the answer around zero from well over 700 U.S politicians and lawmakers it turned out. America needs to wage war every ten years because 10% of the US population depend on the Industrial Military Complex to make a living. There are eye-opening moments, like the one where Cody Rice appears to have a top secret folder under her arm detailing possible attacks on America by terrorists targeting ‘tall buildings with planes’, and ;ports with boats’ etc, and that was August 2001. There is enough in this film to excite those conspiracy theorists but also plenty to laugh at, America either having their pants pulled down on Sep 11 or pulling down the Middle East pants to embarrass them into what turned out to be the ill feted Arab Spring. I know at the time the media here in the UK didn’t really want to examine the connection between oil in Iraq and the need to pinch it but simply believed the lies early on in the drive for war (or not brave enough to challenge them) so left to films like this one to question the official narrative, why it did great box office here. How much of the film is actually true is the question and indeed the irony here, Moore known to embellish and fluff out facts to fit his polemic. But no one ever sued him so we can presume most of it is and he had skilled lawyers. Will the Covid 19 documentary be next we wonder?