Gunning for Columbine (Bowling for Columbine (DVD))

Member Name: neilburden

Product:	Bowling for Columbine (DVD)
Date:	05/04/04 (39 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Informative, Entertaining

Disadvantages: N/A

Bowling for Columbine
Written, Directed and Starring: Michael Moore
Film Type: Documentary

What is the film about? ? Michael Moore (Naked Truth, writer of bestseller Stupid White Men) sets out to try and discover why there are so many gun related deaths in America and what causes people to commit atrocities, the like of which occurred at Columbine High School.

As cinema-goers, we attend screenings of the latest releases hoping we will be entertained for the next two hours we?re in the theatre. It is rare however to leave the cinema better informed about the world we live in than before we entered.

Michael Moore?s film manages to do both. He gets his point across through humour and the sense that we are all going through this journey of investigation and discovery together and he is learning right along with us. It is unusual to see a documentary at the cinema, but it works well because of the important nature of the film?s topic.

Moore visits many ?normal? towns to talk to the citizens about why massacres occurred there. Many of them provide funny but scary answers to his questions. A visit to K-Mart (who sold the bullets to the Columbine killers) headquarters provides an enlightening response and a reminder that just one person can make a difference. The climax of the film is an interview with Charlton Heston (the National Rifle Association President), which does not end the film on a hopeful note.

The film banishes the idea that America has more killings than anyone else because they have more guns and instead points the finger at the American psyche, fed on fear by the sensationalist media. Moore?s documentary does not however try to find a solution to an incredibly complex problem, which is now ingrained into American culture. The films success will ultimately be measured on whether it has any effect on American?s attitude to gun control rather than box office sales.

The film was a welcome change from
a normal cinema release and was entertaining through out. The only slight criticisms were that at two hours it was overlong and that the ending did nothing to draw together the questions and challenges raised during the film

Summary: