May, 2016 RollingStoneAus.com|Rolling Stone| 103
WheretoInvadeNext
Michael Moore
Directed by Michael Moore
★★★★
has michael moore gone
soft? You might think so, mak-
ingasnapjudgmentofWhere to
Invade Next,a crazy-like-a-fox
documentary hellbent on seeing
thebestinpeople.Otherpeo-
ple. Not Americans. Turns out
his countrymen suck at practic-
ingwhattheypreach.Sohere’s
Moore, the proudly schlubby
Michigan warrior, heading off
to Europe to plant the U.S. flag
in countries where folks know
howtolive.Inotherwords,he
intends to steal the good stuff
andbringithome.Naive?For
sure.Manipulative?Youbet.
Moore’s detractors see him as
an arrogant fat cat passing him-
self off as the common man to
nail easy targets. Even his sup-
portersbuythearrogantpart,
but find – as I do – that Moore is
just the pain in the ass we need
in a crisis. Moore’s newfound
mellow approach in Where to
Invade Next is mea nt to disa r m
us. This is Big Mike the enter-
tainer, not the provocateur of
cinematic missiles such as Bowl-
ing for Columbine, Fahrenheit
9/11 and Sicko. Don’t believe it.
No laugh in this doc goes out
without a sting in its tail.
Moore sets up his film by
daydreaming about a sum-
mons from the Joint Chiefs of
Staff. “Instead of using Ma-
rines, use me,” he pleads. As
we watch a collage of Ameri-
ca at its worst – bank scandals,
stock frauds, housing foreclo-
sures, black teens murdered by
cops – Moore sets out to invade
the world for bright ideas.
In Italy, he meets a couple
who get 30 days paid vacationeach year with no loss in pro-
ductivity. Their bosses encour-
age two-hour lunches at home,
where families can connect.
In France, Moore is aston-
ished by school kids who are
served nutritional food, in-
cluding several kinds of chees-
es (Camembert, mais oui!),
and are horrifi ed by the slop
washed down with sugary soft
drinks in America. They drink
water.
OK, Moore is cherry-pick-
ing the most damning evi-
dence. And you keep wishing
he’d push harder and go deep-
er instead of skipping of to the
next thing. But he’s not making
things up. And when he ven-
tures into even more incendi-
ary territory, the facts emerge
with distressing impact.
The Germans, for example,
don’t run from their shame-
ful backstory; they use art andpublic forums to remind cit-
izens of the Holocaust. Back
home, America’s vicious history
with Native Americans and Af-
rican slaves is mostly ignored,
even as recent events echo the
past through gun culture and
racial violence.
Love him or hate his meth-
ods, Moore touches a nerve in
Where to Invade Next. In a cli-
mactic remembrance at the
Berlin Wall, he recalls a time
when a corrupt regime was
brought down by people will-
ing to protest. What counted
most were humanitarian prin-
ciples, the same bedrock con-
cepts that America was found-
ed on. Amid the comic chaos
of this scattershot satire is a
shocking reminder to Ameri-
cans that discovering the path
ahead may be as uncomplicat-
ed as rediscovering the way
they were. It’s classic Moore.America the Un-Beautiful
Michael Moore delivers some brutal home truths in latest documentary By Peter Travers
Moore invades
Europe for a
better USA.