Movie review: Capitalism: A Love Story

by John P. Meyer

If you go into Capitalism: A Love Story expecting an entertaining melodrama featuring real people (including filmmaker Michael Moore, in all his vainglorious, self-proclaimed heroic splendor), then you're likely to be well pleased.

If, on the other hand, you were expecting a fair, reasoned, unbiased documentary approach to the complex capitalist underpinnings of the U.S. economy ... wait a minute, you DID hear this was a Michael Moore production, right?

In fairness, Moore did not set out to make a scholarly study of capitalism as an institution. He's more concerned with the manner in which big corporations (primarily banks and investment firms) have weaseled their way into our federal government, and specifically how they crashed and burned in late 2008 -- only to rise, Phoenix-like, from the shambles of the shattered economy thanks to bailouts funded by U.S. taxpayers. (You know, the 99% of the population at the bottom of the income bracket who account for 5% of the country's total wealth.)

Meanwhile, average Joes and Janes are left to dangle on the gibbet of their ruined personal finances, and Moore spends a good deal of time getting up close and personal with some of them for our viewing pleasure.

Michael Moore doing what he does best: grandstanding

The opening scene reminds us of one of those "look, Pa, I'm getting that oncoming tornado on the video camera! D'oh!" sequences we see on the Discovery Channel. In this case, however, it's squad cars from the sheriff's department that are bearing down, storm-like, on the house from which our hapless videographer is peering through the front window blinds. Pretty soon there are hammers being deployed on door locks while the occupants cringe and state their names for the camera. It's only after the deputies succeed in smashing through the door that they announce, sotto voce, "Sheriff's Department."

"Yeah, we know!" proclaims the (ex-)homeowner, as the eviction process continues.

Never one for the exercise of subtlety, Moore inserts a heart-tugging, string-heavy score against this and other episodes involving folks being forcefully disenfranchised from their belongings and domiciles. If the actual goings-on weren't enough to bring a tear to your eye, the weepy music is sure to do so.

All quiet on the capitalist front

The same can be said for the pairing of Carl Orff's ominous, grandiose Carmina Burana scored against the Reagan administration's union-busting activities.

In addition to his live interviews with people in dire financial straits and those who've been exploited by the evils of big corporations (e.g., the widows and widowers -- and the weeping families -- of the deceased employees who've had "Dead Peasant" insurance policies taken out on them by their employers), Moore inserts vintage newsreel footage, corporate TV ads, and even movie clips -- some of which have been overdubbed to replace their intended agenda with his. It can be pretty amusing stuff.

Take the excerpt from Jesus of Nazareth, for instance, which finds Jesus (in the flaxen-haired, blue-eyed personage of Robert Powell) fielding questions and requests from the masses. The Son of God (as dubbed) preaches various free marketplace ideals and -- for his big finish -- refuses to heal a cripple due to the fact that the poor chap's condition is pre-existing. HA! ha!.

When we get to Bush's Sept. 2008 on-camera address to the nation regarding his sponsorship of the big corporate bailout (to the tune of $700 billion), Moore's film editing crew goes to work splicing in bits of banners catching fire in the room behind him and crazed citizens running across the stage knocking over the furniture in their panic.

Would you let this guy into your corporate facility to make a citizen's arrest? (Would you even let him into your guest bathroom?)

Moore revels in the fact that financial institutions and their principals (quite naturally, given his confrontational poise and telegraphed agenda) employ security to keep him away -- some of the best dramatic moments in the film stem from his nonsensical efforts to execute "citizens arrests." He then backs up a borrowed armored transport to the front entrance of a banking conglomerate and requests that they load it up with the money he claims was stolen from the pockets of the American people. (Gotta admit the truck makes a great prop.)

There are a couple of high water marks in the film, such as Moore's interview with a bread baking company owned entirely by its employees, which operates under a purely democratic reimbursement and management structure; and his chronicling of the Republic Windows & Doors standoff in Chicago, which ended in a surprising success for the laid off workers.

Paradoxically, he reaches a low-water mark with his non sequitur introduction of the Katrina flooding event into the picture. Yeah, I guess the evils of capitalism had something to do with that, all right -- in the same way that a butterfly's flapping wings might be seen as contributing to the hurricane that springs up an ocean away.

At two hours run-time, by the time this thing is over you'll either be frothing at the mouth, ready to take up a pitchfork and storm the Bastille -- or bemoaning Moore's lack of narrative focus. (Or both.)

Me? I'm hoarding gold.