I was bored by Michael Moore's last film, Fahrenheit 9/11, and sent it back to NetFlix unfinished. Sicko, however, is a different story. From beginning to end, Moore's new documentary is evocative, humorous, maddening, sad and thought-provoking. Moore shines a bright light on HMO atrocities and America's failing healthcare system, and he contrasts the U.S. system with the government-run healthcare systems of Canada, Britain, Cuba and France.
Since Sicko is a Michael Moore film, you have to take it with a grain of salt, but, without a doubt, the movie is doing what it was meant to do - it's creating a national conversation about healthcare and battling the stigma of socialized medicine.
From Open Wide and Say 'Shame' by A.O. Scott of The New York Times:
Since Sicko is a Michael Moore film, you have to take it with a grain of salt, but, without a doubt, the movie is doing what it was meant to do - it's creating a national conversation about healthcare and battling the stigma of socialized medicine.
From Open Wide and Say 'Shame' by A.O. Scott of The New York Times:
With evident glee (and a bit of theatrical faux-naïveté) Mr. Moore sets out to challenge some widely held American notions about socialized medicine. He finds that British doctors are happy and well paid, that Canadians don’t have to wait very long in emergency rooms, and that the French are not taxed into penury. “What’s your biggest expense after the house and the car?” he asks an upper-middle-class French couple. “Ze feesh,” replies the wife. “Also vegetables.”Sicko is by far the best of Michael Moore's films, and it has the potential to do the most good. More from A.O.Scott:
If you listen to what the leaders of both political parties are saying, it seems unlikely that the diagnosis offered by “Sicko” will be contested. I haven’t heard many speeches lately boasting about how well our health care system works. In this sense “Sicko” is the least controversial and most broadly appealing of Mr. Moore’s movies. (It is also, perhaps improbably, the funniest and the most tightly edited.) The argument it inspires will mainly be about the nature of the cure, and it is here that Mr. Moore’s contribution will be most provocative and also, therefore, most useful.So, over the long Fourth of July weekend, I recommend taking two hours off from hot dogs and fireworks to go see Sicko. You'll be glad you did, and hot dogs are bad for you anyway.
