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Sicko

A critical look at American healthcare

By Geoff Berkshire, Metromix

June 29, 2007

Critic's Rating:

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It's difficult to peg down exactly what kind of movie "Sicko" is. It's funny, it's tragic, it's deeply terrifying, but above all it's uniquely Michael Moore.

Some may simply call this consideration of America's ailing healthcare system a documentary, but Moore's emphasis on infotainment in service of unabashedly liberal politics often leads to quibbles over that classification too.

This time out Moore has tackled a topic that people from both the right and the left of the political spectrum consider a problem, and although not everyone will agree with the solutions he explores, "Sicko" may be Moore's most mass appeal piece of work yet. That is, if the message gets out that seeing this movie is a lot more fun than a trip to the doctor.

Moore narrates throughout, but he spends less time on camera than usual, devoting the film's first half to personal horror stories of Americans dealing with health insurance companies. "Sicko" ably demonstrates the difficulties people have in obtaining health insurance and the struggles that ensue even for those who are covered.

After detailing what's wrong with the U.S. system, Moore leaves the country (and steps in front of the camera) to explore how healthcare is handled elsewhere, including Canada, England, France and, no doubt most controversially, Cuba.

"Sicko" shapes the debate over federal government run universal healthcare as a moral crisis with portraits of Americans who have lost family members due to inadequate insurance plans and homeless who are literally kicked to the curb by profit-minded hospitals.

There's no screen time devoted to opposing views from insurance companies, hospitals or politicians with different plans to fix the system. But then again, Moore has never made any bogus claims about being a "fair and balanced" filmmaker.

Ultimately, "Sicko" is best classified, like all of Moore's work, as a provocation. He starts the debate. It's up to the rest of us to keep it going.

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