THE BIG ONE (Miramax) Featuring: Michael Moore, Rick Nielsen, Peter Knight. Screenplay: Michael Moore. Producer: Kathleen Glynn. Director: Michael Moore. MPAA Rating: Unrated. Running Time: 95 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
In an era of soaring stock markets, Republican Revolutions and enough backlashes to give you whiplash, Michael Moore is something of an anachronism: part stand-up comic, part guerrilla film-maker but always 100% old-school liberal. Moore became famous for his successful 1989 documentary ROGER & ME, in which he chronicled his Quixotic quest to speak with General Motors CEO Roger Smith about the colsure of a manufacturing plant in Moore's hometown of Flint, Michigan. The intervening years have found him dabbling in feature film-making (CANADIAN BACON), television ("TV Nation") and book writing (the best-selling "Downsize This! Random Threats from an Unarmed American"), but the unifying thread in his work has continued to be the deflating of corporate America, the anger sweetened with a wink and a smile.
Moore might be considered one of the most dangerous radicals in America if only you didn't want to giggle every time you saw him. His new documentary THE BIG ONE is a hilariously unique piece of social commentary as vaudeville, a cross between "60 Minutes" and David Letterman which draws most of its laughs from Moore's mere presence. The film follows Moore on what is supposed to be a book tour for the 1996 release of "Downsize This!", but actually serves as an excuse for Moore to pounce on corporate down-sizers around the country. In Centralia, Illinois, he meets with a representative from Leaf Candy who explains that workers' jobs could have been preserved "if (the factory) had been making less money;" in Cincinnati, he hands Proctor & Gamble reps a Dubious Distinction Award even as he shares his fondness for Tide detergent.
The confrontations which make up the backbone of THE BIG ONE easily could have been humorless kamikaze journalism if not for the fact that it's Michael Moore holding the microphone. With his round face, shaggy hair and omnipresent baseball cap, Moore looks less like an investigative reporter than he does the kind of guy who goes shirtless at Green Bay Packer games. He has an agenda, to be sure, but he's also a splendid performer who makes it look easy drawing his flies with honey rather than vinegar. As entertaining as he may be in full concert mode -- describing how 1996 presidential candidate Steve Forbes never blinks; explaining the role of "shareholders" in the U.S. Constitution; suggesting that our country change its name from the boring "United States" to the more intimidating "The Big One" -- Moore is at his best as the self-effacing goofball who ends up making others look like even bigger goofballs.
Nowhere is this gift better displayed than in Moore's already controversial encounter with the first CEO who ever agreed to meet him personally, Nike boss Peter Knight. When Moore asks Knight why Nike employs child labor in Asia rather than American workers, Knight calmly replies that "Americans don't really want to make shoes." If Knight comes off looking like the devil -- and with his Tim Curry grin, he certainly looks the part -- it's not because he's acting in the economic best interest of his company. Knight simply doesn't have the guts to come out with such an admission, a fact largely attributable to Moore's preferred conversational style.
It's rather foolish to accuse Moore of blantant propagandizing, since he never bothers to hide the fact. Occasionally he butts heads with recalcitrant company drones past the point of diminishing returns, and a couple of moments with "average Americans" (including a tearful session at a book signing) appear either staged or needlessly like photo opportunities. Still, it's hard to imagine that even the staunchest Libertarian won't find something to smile at in Moore's singular tapestry of 1990s Americana. That goofy round-faced guy in the baseball cap sure knows how to make a lecture not seem like a lecture.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 Moores, the merrier: 8.
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