Michael Moore

4 Pages 885 Words

One of the most interesting things I learned while watching Moore’s often-devastating documentary, which takes dead aim at the culture of violence that is America, was the eloquence and insightfulness of shock rocker Marilyn Manson. Many in the media pointed to Manson as a destructive influence in the lives Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, who opened fire and killed a dozen people in Columbine High School, but we see Manson as a sensitive counterpoint to the pompous callousness of the NRA and its spokesman Charlton Heston. Intelligent and well-informed, Manson provides one of the documentary’s most touching moments when asked what he would say to the kids from Columbine if they were here now. “Nothing,” says Manson, “I’d just listen to them,” which is something nobody seems to have done.

Balancing this is a creepy interview with James Nicholls, brother of Terry Nicholls, who is serving life in prison for his role in the Oklahoma City bombings. Nicholls snickers and rants his way through the interview, clearly a man with a threadbare hold on sanity who cocks a loaded gun at his head and warns that America’s tyrannical government shouldn’t be surprised if there are soon rivers of blood in the streets. Finally, when Nicholls begrudgingly admits that there should be limitations on the kinds of weaponry people own, like weapons-grade plutonium, his reason is chilling. “There are wackos out there.” Indeed.

At times, though, Moore’s shtick wears thin. When he spent months trying to track down the titular character in Roger and Me (General Motors chairman Roger Smith), Moore became infamous for the way he waylaid executives, confronting them with their betrayals and hypocrisies. Here, it is only during a visit to K-Mart, where he and a pair of victims of the shootings urge the chain to stop carrying the sort of ammunition that the kids used to gun down classmates at Columbine that Moore is able to recapture that li...