Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story is a shocking movie for many reasons. First is the intimate albeit brief look we get into the innumerable families who lost their homes to foreclosure and the depression and anger they experience. Second is the revelation of the revolting practice of employers taking out life insurance policies on their employees (and in so doing making money off of their deaths). Third, and the most shocking to me, is how poor Moore's filmmaking abilities have become. The editing--perhaps the most crucial element in a documentary--is absolutely awful. It was made with simple cuts in what looked like a matter of hours by someone who first discovered Final Cut Pro. It was amateur hour in every sense of the word, and it felt like someone was peeing into my eyes with contempt, disregard, and laziness.The story shows almost no coherence or progression. Not only does that make the movie confusing, it also makes it long (because we cannot predict when an end is approaching). I know from the title and trailers that its intent is anti-capitalist, but the movie itself fails to get that message across. Instead, Moore seems to have confused greed and cruelty with capitalism. Most people can agree that greedy, cruel men can destroy people's lives by putting them out on the street with little care for their survival, but greed and cruelty can exist in any economic policy. So where does capitalism come in?
Moore has lost his technique, and in so doing has also lost his subtlety and his subversion. We see the sad stories of people who lost their homes, we share in their pain and their occasional triumph, but we do not connect the dots. We are not compelled to get up out of our seats and change the world for the better (even though he verbally asks us to at its conclusion). Why? Because we feel tricked into thinking what Moore wants us to think. While essentially every single filmmaker's goal is to manipulate the audience, they are to do it without being discovered. Here Moore has made it so obvious that he is attempting to tell us how to feel and who to blame that it is hard to believe that he is doing it for our own benefit instead of his.
I normally enjoy Moore's movies and stand behind his provocative points of view, but here I think he has pushed this movie out too quickly with too little research and too little production. This is a film of little entertainment value and little social value. There is very little substance--just a lot of personal hatred and righteous indignation from a man who makes a lot of money through capitalism. The worst part about it is the inclusion of a few silly distractions and gimmicks that might make you laugh until you realize that their futility and worthlessness actually mock and belittle the people whose lives are actually affected by the situation. I'm not gonna stop you from watching this movie if you want to, but I will warn you that it's nowhere near as good as Sicko, Fahrenheit 911, or Bowling for Columbine. Also, I think he got the title wrong. He mentions love nowhere in this story. And it's not about capitalism.
IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1232207/