Review of Roger & Me (1989) by Andrew C — 07 Apr 2009

Michael Moore's first documentary is an insightful piece on American car maker GM's huge layoff of tens of thousands of employees during their.

'downsizing' in the late 80's. Closing factories in America and opening new ones in Mexico where labour was a fraction of the price completely destroyed towns like Flint, Michigan (where Moore hails from) whose life blood was car manufacturing.

Roger & Me is not as showpony as some of Moores later documentaries, he seems a little tame here compared to some of his antics (trying to get health care at Guantanamo Bay for example) but it is just as important a work as his later stuff, especially considering this same car maker is now asking the American government for huge amounts of money to keep it afloat. Blame it on the recession all you want but I don't see Toyota doing too badly. Maybe if GM had embraced a more forward thinking business model and hadn't given away thousands of American jobs I might be more empathetic towards their situation.

Moore spends most of the movie trying to get the CEO of GM, Roger Smith to visit Michigan and see what the town as turned into as a result of the huge layoffs - massive unemployment, people leaving, crime rates ballooning to among the highest in America etc. This quest is interspersed with talking head interviews with residents of Flint, seeing how they are coping with unemployment and new career paths and failed initiatives the city is taking trying to turn its fate around such as turning Flint into a tourist destination (lol).

It might be Moore's first doco but for people alienated by his in your face showpony style of his latter work give this one a shot, you might find it a lot more appealing.