Following the global successes of Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore must rank as the most recognisable documentary filmmaker working today, with a reputation for asking unpalatable questions and exposing the institutions behind the news.
This latest was originally intended as a state-of-the-nation follow up to Fahrenheit 9/11, before the financial crisis removed everything else from the political agenda and precipitated a change of focus for the filmmaker.
With his trademark mix of personal stories (a dispossessed family from Ohio, the workers’ revolution in Chicago) and the ironic use of news and archive footage married to comic attempts to get his targets to talk on camera, this latest essay is a searing attack on corporate America and the system that brought the US economy to its knees with the 2008 financial crisis.
Moore himself draws the audience back to his own roots and his earlier Roger and Me, returning to his hometown of Flint, Michigan to look at the demise of General Motors as a marker for the inevitable collapse of US capitalism.
But it’s the new material revealed here, especially the detailed exposé of connections between the US Treasury and Wall Street, that really packs a punch and should ensure that the term merchant baker remains a pejorative for some time to come.