Sicko (Optimum, £17.99)
Slacker (Metrodome, £17.99)MICHAEL MOORE MAY HAVE A LOT of detractors, but the purpose of his latest film Sicko, in which he sets his polemical eye on the American healthcare system (or lack thereof)
, is so fundamentally sound it's hard to argue against it. He asks why the wealthiest country in the world doesn't have a system that provides basic care for the sick of any age, race, class or income level. What he doesn't do – surprisingly – is take it upon himself to hunt down the profit-hungry drug companies, the bureaucratic insurance companies or the re-election-dependent politicians who have an interest in keeping this state of affairs going.
Instead, he lets a few of the decent, hard-working Americans who have been failed by a system they believed in tell their stories. Ranging from the absurd (a girl charged for the ambulance ride to hospital after a car crash leaves her unconscious) to the heart-breaking (the middle-aged couple whose medical bills have forced them to sell their home) to the disgusting (CCTV footage of destitute patients being dumped on the street) and the tragic (the woman whose child died because her healthcare plan didn't include emergency treatment at the nearest hospital), the film is a moving attempt to shame the nation into taking action.
It also serves up one of the greatest agitprop stunts imaginable as Moore takes a group of 9/11 rescue workers to Cuba to get the medical care they can't afford in America. It's great stuff, so it's a shame Moore's rose-tinted view of the NHS (and the healthcare systems of other nations) detracts somewhat from his message. While the film will undoubtedly make you thankful we have a socialised health system, it doesn't seem entirely helpful to suggest that it costs us nothing, that there's no waiting list or that every treatment is free.
More to the point, you may start to feel resentful that your National Health contributions are being used to treat idiotic American Beatles fans who injure themselves doing handstands on Abbey Road.
If Moore had as much respect for the intelligence of his target audience as he does empathy for them, he'd really be on to a winner here. Still, it's worth picking up, and among the deleted scenes is an excellent extended interview with Tony Benn.
Also just out is Richard Linklater's groundbreaking 1991 debut, Slacker. Alongside Nirvana's Nevermind album and Douglas Coupland's novel Generation X, this sprawling, plotless film helped define the era and was one of the biggest influences on the American independent film explosion during the 1990s.
Given this, it's surprising – though appropriate, I suppose – that this release makes no effort to put the film in any kind of historical context. A documentary, a Linklater chat, even a where-are-they-now? feature would have been a welcome addition. Still, as the film introduces a wide selection of weirdos, conspiracy theorists, coffee-shop philosophers, TV addicts and hustlers trying to hawk Madonna's pap smear, it remains oddly compelling and sometimes very funny.
It's also fun to see Linklater (who appears as the Wizard of Oz- obsessed taxi passenger at the start of the film) trying out the walking-and-talking filmmaking style he perfected in Before Sunrise and Before Sunset.
