Review of Sicko (2007) by Kenneth H — 20 Apr 2010

After going buck wild in Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore tones it down considerably in this film and moves the camera away from him and towards his subjects: the victims of the U.S. health care system. And it works. This movie is the most touching, caring, and compassionate of the four main Moore films between 2000 and 2009. It's also the best-made and most coherent of the four movies; Moore largely sheds his previous tendency to wander off on all kinds of tangents and focuses like a laser on the broken American health care system, before turning his attention to other countries' superior health care systems, then widening the scope to include those same countries' generous social programs in other areas and asking, why can't we be like that?

While the main focus is health care, Moore's larger argument is about more than health care; it's about government itself and what role it should play in our lives. His concluding thesis is a very liberal one: We're all connected and interdependent, and we owe it to ourselves to take care of each other. The way we do that is through an active, caring government. Government is not a bad thing; because it's a moral, responsible, not-for-profit institution that reflects our interests and values, it's actually a very good thing and we need more of it.