Michael Moore repackages the smug, disingenuous approach that he brought to the topic of healthcare in Sicko and broadens it out to cover the whole gamut of America’s social ills. In this smirking travelogue, he lumbers around Europe brandishing an American flag and a can of Coca-Cola, appropriating ideas and policies that he would like to see back in the US. And while the Finnish education system, Italian paid holidays and Iceland’s robust approach to its own banking crisis should be a cause for pride for each of those countries, Moore’s partisan and simplistic approach feels more like a big, fat insult to audience intelligence rather than an effective call to arms.
