Roger & Me (1989)

“[voice-over] Well, the million tourists never came to Flint. The Hyatt went bankrupt and was put up for sale, Waterstreet Pavillion saw most of its stores go out of business, and only six months after opening, Autoworld closed due to a lack of visitors. I guess it was like expecting a million people a year to go to New Jersey to Chemicalworld, or a million people going to Valdez, Alaska for Exxonworld. Some people just don’t like to celebrate human tragedy while on vacation.” – Michael Moore

Number of Times Seen – 1 (7 Sep 2018)

Brief Synopsis – A resident of Flint, Michigan tries to get a meeting with the CEO of General Motors in order to find out why he has recently closed a plant in the city forcing thousands of people to be without jobs.

My Take on it – Michael Moore has been a very controversial filmmaker for nearly thirty years and even in his debut film, it’s quite easy to understand why.

Moore is an expert of making hard hitting documentaries that stay interesting and engaging the entire time and that has a lot to do with the tactics that he uses in order to try and prove his initial thesis.

The use of absurdities to make his point has always served him well and this film is no exception to that rule and he manages to present so many absurdities that this feels like a comedy of errors instead of the hard hitting poignant film it should be.

Despite being presented as a comedy of errors, this film makes you want to question the system instead of outright laugh at the craziness of it all.

This film feels a bit archaic at certain points due to the fact that some of the film-making techniques used thirty years ago have been updated but it still comes across as being extremely informative and intriguing to watch it all unfold.

Bottom Line – Moore really knows how to make an interesting and engaging documentary and even in his very first film shows that he has a knack for it. The documentary (like most of Moore’s future films) goes to the absurd in trying to make his point and it works really well here too in trying to show his view on things.  He uses great tactics in order to show how crazy things can be in the world and even if this film feels a bit archaic, it still works extremely well the entire time. This is film is presented as a comedy of errors and instead of making you want to laugh, it makes you once again question the system. Highly Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – This is the only movie where there has been a successful lawsuit against Michael Moore – filed by former friend Larry Stecco who successfully argued that his portrayal in the movie was not an accurate reflection of his character (“False light invasion of privacy” is the legal term) and won. Stecco was interviewed attending a society fund raising ball and was made out to be a high-society rich pig who partied while people where starving outside. He was actually a lawyer who worked pro-bono for the poorer residents of Flint. (From IMDB)

Rating – Oscar Worthy (9/10)

_______________________________________

Check out my *updated* movie stats here

To see my reviews of Oscar Winning Performances check out this link

To see my reviews of all Oscar Best Picture Winners click here (now complete)

Here is a link to my movie index A-Z