Bowling For Columbine

By EWAN McDONALD

(Herald rating: * * * * *)

What is the free gift for customers when they open a new account at a bank in Michigan? A gun. But the funny thing is the bank staff don't see why some people might find that odd.

Gonzo journalist Michael Moore's post-September 11 documentary about America's gun culture shows few people connect the dots between the number of weapons and the fact that they kill 11,000 people every year.

Known to New Zealand viewers for his late-night TV Nation and his previous "guerilla documentary", Roger And Me (a treatise on corporate America based around General Motors' treatment of a small Michigan town), Moore uses selected/selective footage of figures, from Salvador Allende to George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Dick Clark, Bill Clinton, General Noriega and the last Shah of Iran.

He films Charlton Heston, president of the National Rifle Association, making a blood-and-thunder speech at his organisation's rally then draws a bead on the frail old man in an interview at his home.

An award-winner from the Oscars to the Cesars, from Cannes to Kansas City, the film takes its title from the Columbine High School massacre in 1999 when 12 students and a teacher were gunned down by two students who had started their school day with a bowling class.

So Moore also talks to South Park creator and Columbine old boy Matt Stone, and goth-rocker Marilyn Manson, whose songs were said to have "inspired" the teenage killers.

DVD features: movie (120min).