To Catch A Chief
Michael Moore is at it again, terrorizing - well, more accurately, annoying - America’s corporate fat cats in his new, kinda documentary “The Big One.”
Like “Roger & Me” nine years ago, “Big One” is a snide, comic crusade to stick up for forgotten workers. This time, though, the movie doesn’t capture the national mood on the eve of a devastating recession, but it exposes the not real well-kept secret that our current economic boom is, for many, illusory at best.
As in “Roger,” Moore’s tactic is to stalk business leaders in their home office lairs, hoping to ask on camera why they’re firing so many employees in a time of record high profits and executive salaries. As usual, he has precious little success; much of the movie involves Moore and a small camera crew being escorted out of sterile headquarters buildings by cops and security guards.
But “Big One” is different in that it’s farther-ranging and built around a gag that is both slightly insurgent and apparently self-compromising. Moore shot the film while touring to promote his book “Downsize This!” on the publisher’s dime - a publisher that, of course, was part of a soulless conglomerate. Call it yet another act of satirical subversion, but Moore’s in on the joke enough to declare, when his book hits the bestseller list, that big money backing ain’t so bad.
Most compellingly, Moore crisscrosses the country meeting the exploited and cast-aside casualties of our latest economic miracle. His luckiest find: people at a Pay Day candy bar plant who’ve just been laid off. His most ironic find: clerks at a chain bookstore in the Midwest who aren’t allowed to attend his signing, lest they be encouraged to vote in a union. His biggest backfire: hitting the Wisconsin statehouse to demand jobs for people recently thrown off welfare, accompanied by folks no employer in their right mind would hire.
The movie climaxes with the realization of Moore’s near decade-long quest: He finally gets a plundering CEO, Nike’s Phil Knight, to talk on camera. The meetings are cordial but very uncomfortable. He playfully needles Knight about visiting Nike’s Indonesian sweatshops together or opening a factory in Moore’s still-depressed hometown of Flint, Mich.
The guerrilla filmmaker may accomplish his long creative quest with “The Big One,” but there is little satisfaction to be had from it. Moore, and we, are left with the desultory feeling that things aren’t getting any better, even in the best of times.
The Big One Location: Lincoln Heights Cinemas Credits: Written and directed by Michael Moore Running time: 1:36 Rating: PG-13