The furor that met Michael Moore’s third quasi-documentary essay when it was released in 2004 seems rather quaint in view of today’s anything-goes punditry: it was criticized for not being objective! But the blistering assault on the administration of George W. Bush, complete with its incendiary title, was effective polemic and remains so. In a scattershot assault, Moore begins with what he describes as the Republican theft of the 2000 presidential election and moves on to an unremitting critique of Bush’s administration. The 9/11 attacks were the turning point that allowed an illegitimate chief executive to undertake policies threatening basic citizen rights even though his so-called war on terror was initially tentative, a fact Moore explains as the result of the Bush family’s close ties to the Saudi regime. The upshot was a decision to invade Iraq based not on evidence of Saddam Hussein’s involvement in 9/11 but on the hope of profit, and devastating losses for American families whose sons and daughters served in the war.
Moore puts Bush and members of his administration squarely in his crosshairs, manipulating masses of found footage to make them look as shifty and duplicitous (as well as clueless) as one could possibly wish. Fahrenheit 9/11 is not entirely partisan, however, since Democrats are characterized as equally vapid and blundering. While it is fairly easy to pick apart Moore’s arguments, pointing out lapses in logic and strained connections, the combination of snidely funny commentary, powerful imagery (the almost surrealistic portrayal of 9/11 and combat footage), jocular stunts (a contretemps with the secret service outside the Saudi embassy in Washington and a public serenading of Congress with the text of the Patriot Act) and manipulative moments (a sidebar on Californians whose peace group was infiltrated by local cops, or an interview with a Michigan woman whose son was killed in the war) makes for a consistently compelling, if somewhat chaotic, diatribe.
Much of what Moore offers was not new even in 2004–Bush’s ties to a man in the Texas Air National Guard whose name his advisors tried to conceal is really the biggest “gotcha” moment, and a minor one–but it strings together numerous already-known tidbits (and plenty of innuendoes) into a sporadically sharp mosaic. It also serves as a continuation of Moore’s Oscar-winning Bowling for Columbine, about school shootings, in emphasizing the government’s need to keep Americans constantly frightened in order to justify policies they might otherwise reject out of hand. Though clearly a poison pen letter to Bush, Fahrenheit 9/11 succeeded in infuriating and satisfying 2004 audiences in approximately equal numbers, and even today no viewer is likely to remain blasé after seeing it.
This release includes many bonus features: the original theatrical trailer; a featurette titled "The Release of Fahrenheit 9/11" (11 min.), and nine additional scenes, interviews, and archival clips (72 min. total). Recommended.