Michael Moore's 'Sicko': An infectious approach

The documentary maker's latest film takes on the ills of a U.S. health care system that leaves many behind.

By By Steve Persall, Times Film Critic
Published June 28, 2007

Whatever you think of Michael Moore, Sicko is a movie that deserves attention.

His documentary of the American health care system is a horror show of unethical greed, ruined retirements and chronic illnesses that aren't being soothed.

It is also a better example of documentary filmmaking than his Fahrenheit 9/11, more balanced and smoothly structured to answer the questions he raises.

As you would expect, Moore wastes no time before jabbing President Bush. The first shot is Bush's poorly worded wish that doctors can "practice their love with women across the country."

But Sicko isn't about Bush.

We meet a series of ordinary Americans who must stitch their own gaping wounds, or choose which of two severed fingertips to reattach, or miss medical treatment because they don't have health insurance.

Moore says Sicko isn't about them, either.

Instead, he declares his movie is about Americans who are covered by health insurance -- although not as securely as they think.

They're all colors and political persuasions, ranging from a dead baby in an emergency room to a 79-year-old man cleaning store floors to get prescriptions filled for free.

What is the alternative?

Moore believes a universal health care plan is the answer. Something along the lines of Canada, Great Britain and Cuba, where Sicko takes viewers on tours of hospitals and pharmacies that offer treatment paid by taxes. Later, Moore discovers the only U.S. place with that model: Guantanamo Bay, where alleged terrorists are locked away and getting medical treatment at no charge.

Moore takes a showboat to Cuba with a group of 9/11 rescue volunteers, hoping to get them treated for respiratory ailments contracted during that task. Our government won't spring for it since the patients aren't official employees. Cuban doctors take them in with no problem.

What is wrong with this picture?

That's open for debate, but there's nothing wrong with Sicko illuminating the topic. Moore is certainly the lightning rod to do that. After polarizing Americans with Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore takes a bipartisan swipe at insurers, doctors and hospitals that he portrays as money-grubbers sacrificing lives for obscene profits. That elite culture will certainly howl and call Moore a liar, unpatriotic or, even worse, a Socialist cue the Red Scare music.

Does Moore cook the books a little? Probably so. But any bias is in favor of average Americans being burned by the system. Sure, he traces the HMO nightmare back to an Oval Office conversation during the Nixon era, and the fear factor favoring HMOs to pre-presidency Ronald Reagan endorsing the American Medical Association.

Yet he also jabs Hillary Clinton for abandoning her universal health care plan when campaign donations from doctors and insurers started rolling in.

Moore even donates $20, 000 to the host of an anti-Michael Moore Web site so the man's wife can receive cancer treatment that isn't covered by insurance. Maybe it's a stunt, or perhaps just another act by someone who -- for all his faults -- truly cares.

Sicko has its fair share of humor: sarcastic musical cues, pre-existing conditions that negate coverage listed like a Star Wars intro, and vintage American Dream footage. There are more moments that make you want to cry. Just don't get so cranked up that you have a heart attack. There may be nobody around to help you.

Steve Persall can be reached at (727) 893-8365 or Persall@sptimes.com. Read his blog at blogs.tampabay.com/movies.

Grade: A
Director: Michael Moore
Cast: Michael Moore
Screenplay: Michael Moore
Rating: PG-13; mature themes, profanity
Running time: 113 min.

[Last modified June 26, 2007, 16:32:36]