Review: Fahrenheit 11/9

Moore explains how Trump got into the White House

Ah Michael Moore is back, this time gunning for Donald J Trump in Fahrenheit 11/9, referring to November 9, 2016, when the previously thought underdog became the 45th President of the United States.

Showing footage from the day before and the bizarre turnaround of election results from TV clips, Moore asks, "How the f*** did we get here?"



He says it started when Trump was fired from The Apprentice and was annoyed to hear Gwen Stefani was making more money from appearances than he was. So the Don created a fake event that looked like a presidential rally to make him look popular (with paid supporters).

What happened in the 2016 election? Moore asks

Somehow that stuck and people were interested in him. Why? Because he was refreshing, he spoke in simple words for people to understand (whether they were true or not), and the media admittedly enjoyed high ratings as he methodically took down his fellow Republican candidates.

But were we prepared for what happened afterwards, him declaring war on the media, being accused of collusion and corruption, and undoing almost every policy Barack Obama had implemented?

Moore tries to find out how this happened, and one theory backed with statistics is that many Democrats gave up on voting in 2016 because they felt the party was not listening to them. And for the record, in West Virginia Bernie Sanders had support from all 55 counties, but at the Democratic National Convention, the delegation spokeswoman declared the state was supporting Hilary Clinton. The old guard had decided she would go head to head with Trump.

The 64-year-old Moore also blames the rise of the right to Obama's policies, where he deported the largest number of illegal immigrants of all previous administrations, and ordered a lot of air strikes that led to the casualties of a lot of innocent people in Syria.

What's interesting is that the United States really is a liberal country, and cites a slew of statistics about acceptance of gay marriage, supporting free education, social health care, pro marijuana, and so on. But Moore also reveals a lot of cracks in the system, and uses his hometown of Flint, Michigan as an example.

He gives Governor Snyder some polluted Flint water

Rick Snyder just recently stepped down as Michigan state governor because of term limits, but during his time he created an unprecedented disaster with the water supply to Flint in 2014. Originally water had been sourced from Lake Huron, but that was changed to the Detroit River which was polluted. Tens of thousands of children were poisoned from the lead in the water and people died, and yet Snyder was never criminally charged for knowingly doing this.

In addition, the residents were disappointed in Obama not doing enough to condemn the situation and fix it by calling a state of emergency. During his speech he asked for a glass of water and some observers claimed Obama pretended to drink it which made a farce of the issue.

Also the city was literally under attack by the US Army that used Flint to practice fighting against terrorists in an urban setting -- except the residents weren't even told about it ahead of time.

But there are people across the country who are not depending on the system and are fighting back.

He meets student survivors of the Douglas Parkland shooting

After the Douglas Parkland shooting on February 14, 2018, where 17 students and teachers were killed and 17 others injured, surviving students took on local politicians who underestimated the teenagers in the gun control debate. On camera they were caught flat-footed in what they were going to do about magazines and AR-15 semi-automatic rifles.

Moore is very pleased to see the next generation taking matters into their own hands and holding their own rally to bring attention the needless violence days later.

The filmmaker is also fired up by teachers who went on strike for more pay, and a former war vet in West Virginia who is willing to fight for change for his community, as he is tired of politicians pandering to corporate interests over the best interests of citizens. He also talks to Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, who are shaking up the Democratic Party.

And then there is the comparison of Trump to Adolf Hitler, with interviews with two historians who say patterns from World War II are repeating themselves. The warning from Fahrenheit 11/9 is that we need to be careful to preserve our democracy otherwise it will be taken from us before we realize it.

Moore back in the 1990s joking around with Trump on TV

I enjoy Moore's humour -- he admits that Steve Bannon's company distributed his movie, Bowling for Columbine, and that Jared Kushner held a launch party for his documentary Sicko on the state of healthcare in the US. He also remembers meeting Trump on Roseanne Barr's talk show and seems to regret not having a go at him on TV.

Moore tries to make a citizen's arrest of Snyder and fails, and retaliates by spraying polluted Flint water on the property where the governor's mansion sits (sadly too far for the water hose to reach).

The research he does for his documentaries are pretty solid and you can't help but cheer him on and be pleased that someone out there is fighting for us. But this time he is warning that we must take matters into our own hands too.

Fahrenheit 11/9 (2018)
Written, narrated, directed by Michael Moore
120 minutes