...did I hear somebody say good shot?...

Due to the blogger server going down last night, this review is a little late in coming.

Fahrenheit 9/11. I finally went down to see it last night. In the first 5 minutes I thought it was going to be propoganda garbage, but by 10 minutes in I was already hooked and silent.

A note to the audience: there was a lot of laughter in inappropriate parts of the film. I don't know if this is a Canadian phenomenon but it was not appreciated.

About the film - I think it brings up a lot of important questions and thoughts, as well as being an entertaining film. However, if Michael Moore was intending it as a serious documentary, he missed in this regard. With the blatantly biased slant of the movie, and the focus on shock/entertainment value (i.e. dressing the Bush administration as cowboys), I think he loses some credibility and the risk is that it will be seen my many as reason to discredit the movie itself, along with the important message it conveys.

That being said, there were many powerful moments in the movie which really struck me. Some of these were quotes from the Bush camp, for example when Bush is being questioned by the media on the golf green.

"I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you.... Now, watch this drive".

Or this quote:

"What an impressive crowd: the haves, and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite, I call you my base."

The last minutes of the movie were also very strong, including the point where Moore is trying to get congressmen to enlist their children, and the bewildered shock on the congressmens' faces.

In terms of imagery, there were four that have really stayed with me.
i) The little boy whose arm is shown completely decimated and torn out.
ii) The man who is carrying the body of a young boy, and as he turns you see that the boy wet himself from fear before he died.
iii) The interview with the soldier in the military hospital, who lifts his leg and only then do we inadvertently see he has lost his leg.
iv) The burned and hacked bodies of the contractors in Iraq, strung up, images which I had not seen yet.

A powerful movie, and one which I think I need to see again to pay even closer attention to the facts, names and statistics without being distracted by the emotional shocks along the way.