Michael Moore in TrumpLand

[StevePulaski]

Michael Moore in TrumpLand (2016)
Directed by: Michael Moore

Rating: ★★★

Watching Michael Moore in TrumpLand - the "October Surprise" Michael Moore alluded at throughout most of September and October 2016 - on election night in America was a bit of a surreal experience. Amidst the nonstop chattering of political pundits and talking-heads salivating at the mouth as polls close and results begin to turn in quicker than probably most of our experiences voting today, a wave of confusion and disgust came over me as I contemplated a country run by either Republican Donald Trump or Democrat Hillary Clinton. The first election I was legally allowed to vote in and this is the best my country could do?

This fact is not lost on documentarian Michael Moore, the same way it's not lost on Americans young and old, many of whom filed into private voting booths today to cast their vote for either Trump or Clinton to be the successor to Barack Obama. Moore knows that many voted for Trump, particularly the middle-age white male, who allegedly only makes up 19% of America. Over the course of a two-night, one-man-show performance at the Murphy Theatre in Wilmington, Ohio, a famous swing-state in nearly every election, Moore addresses the concerns of the average Trump supporter and breaks them down in a way that pleas for them to, at least, give Hillary Clinton a second-chance in their hearts and minds.

This turned into Michael Moore in TrumpLand, a sixty-nine minute, edited-together work of both performances in what is always a contemplative endeavor. Consider the other two anti-Clinton documentaries we got this year, Hillary's America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party, which was little more than regurgitated history of the Democratic Party, strung together to somehow remain relevant today, and Clinton, Inc., which was a poorly assembled collage of talking-heads babbling about the same Clinton conspiracies. With all that likely in mind, Moore does what he knows how to do and that's plead his case, somewhat sincerely, somewhat facetiously, but always entertainingly, and through a long-winded spiel that turns into on-your-knees-begging by the end, tries to convince us to allow ourselves to discard bias and look at Hillary a bit closer.

Moore does a nice job of breaking down her long struggle as a woman, part of an early-group of women that tried to shatter the glass ceiling in the way of equal pay and treatment under the law. He reminds us how Hillary and her female comrades came from a time where terms like "spousal abuse" and "domestic violence" didn't exist and were simply routine occurrences of the time period. He also illustrates about the time he flew to a little country called Estonia to do research for his film Where to Invade Next, specifically the segment on healthcare and why the country boasts the lowest morality rate amongst women during child-birth.

The facts were not only astonishing to Moore, but also the fact that the doctor spoke of Hillary Clinton coming to Estonia years back to do research on healthcare in other countries in order to compile an elaborate healthcare plan for the United States. Following a whirlwind of criticism, Hillary backed off the issue after presenting her findings to congress. Moore tries to rationalize to a crowd - who seems to be a split between Trump supporters and fans of his work - that perhaps Hillary deserves more credit than a lot of right-wing paranoia suggests. Maybe she could indeed be a person to move things along in America.

Moore's pandering is pretty well-conceived, if obvious, and as stated, he always asserts himself as an entertaining commentator above everything else. Having said that, Michael Moore in TrumpLand should at least do its job in bringing every voter down to a level that hears the other side out, something that both parties have done a miserable job at doing over the course of this miserable election cycle. It's about what you expect from Moore overall, but that's in no way a bad thing given how enlightening and even fun this whole special can be for brief moments.

Directed by: Michael Moore.