Fahrenheit 9/11

(Herald rating: * * * * *)

H. L. Mencken, America's greatest political observer, was scathing about the qualities needed to win a Presidential election.

"When the field is nationwide ... all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre ... As democracy is perfected, the office represents more and more closely the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

Mencken wrote that in 1926 and many might suggest that he was proved right less than 80 years later. Michael Moore, the guerrilla documentary maker with a leftist agenda on-camera and a rather more uncertain one off, turns his attention to what he sees as George W. Bush's dangerous, incompetent, dishonest first term. With Moore so fired up in this tirade, heaven knows where he will turn his attention in the second term.

Of course, history has shown that it didn't matter what Moore and the majority of the outside world thought: the relentless Republican war machine and most of America stuck with Bush.

Moore's distorted mirror shows Bush's strange lack of reaction to the news of 9/11, the links between his family and the Saudis, the money trail from the bin Ladens to the Bushes and their powerful friends and business contacts. The film is even more disturbing and powerful after November's election.

The DVD provides extra material covering the political mood of the times and pro-Moore commentary surrounding its release. Such a feature opens with Quentin Tarantino justifying the unusual decision to award the 2004 Cannes Palme d'Or to a "documentary" (which it isn't, it's a rant) rather than a blockbuster.

There's some coverage from inside Iraq around the time of the invasion, which is of dubious merit though it does continue to show how the attacks killed civilians, the first allegations of brutality from Abu Ghraib prison and the rounding-up of "suspected terrorists". Here you must put it into the context of American TV news, with its embedded journalists. Has Mencken stopped spinning in his grave yet?

Be reminded of Bush's evasions to the 9/11 inquiry and be very worried. And be even more worried when watching Condoleezza Rice in a typically buttoned-down performance, that this closed-minded woman is now America's face to the world as the new Secretary of State.

Some of the extra footage is surreal — Arab-American comedians making post 9/11 jokes, Attorney General John Ashcroft singing his anthem, Let The Eagle Soar — and some manipulative, such as the speech from the mother of a dead soldier at a premiere.