Roger Ebert reviews 'Sicko' in the new movies section. In "Sicko," which opens Friday at local theaters, Moore targets an "Axis of Evil" -- the pharmaceutical industry, the hospital business and the insurance companies. But he says his goal was to focus on everyday people, all covered by insurance, who have faced ruin -- both financial and physical -- because insurance companies denied them benefits.
As usual, Moore uses humor and imagery to stick his finger in the eye of the establishment on behalf of the little guy. He begins by profiling several Americans whose lives have been disrupted by health care catastrophes. After detailing how our system got into this state, Moore visits Canada, Great Britain, France and Cuba, where citizens receive free medical coverage.
Moore says he deliberately stayed away from partisan politics while making "Sicko." "But because of that it's a more dangerous, subversive film," Moore said. "If I'm actually successful at finding common ground with people who usually disagree with me, then that's really bad news for the insurance and pharmaceutical companies.
" Plenty of controversy has swirled around the movie in recent weeks. Treasury Department is investigating Moore for possible violations of America's trade embargo with Cuba when he took ailing Sept. 11 rescue workers to the island for medical treatment.
Moore won't comment on the status of the investigation except to say there's a lot of "back and forth with lawyers." He added, "If I had gone into China and shown Chinese medicine, nobody would criticize me for doing that, and yet China has a far more repressive regime than Cuba. So you have to ask yourself, 'What's this really about?
' It's not really about Castro. It's because he beat us and we don't like getting beat. 1 likes to win all the time.
" Not riled by pirating Last week unauthorized digital versions of the movie showed up on YouTube. After complaints from the film's distributor, they were removed. Moore doesn't seem bothered by the leak.
"I don't believe in the copyright laws in this country," he said. "I believe it's OK to share art and ideas. But as a filmmaker, I meant for the movie to be seen on the big screen.
So I really hope people will see it in the way it was meant to be presented." Moore doesn't have much good to say about the health care plans of the current roster of presidential candidates. He likes what Dennis Kucinich has to say, and, though Al Gore isn't a candidate, Moore would like his voice back in the game.
Moore, a longtime admirer (a chapter in his first book was titled "My Forbidden Love for Hillary"), takes her to task for accepting money from the health insurance lobby. "I have a broken heart," he chuckled. "But I'm just telling the truth.
The key to a solution is removing money from the political system. Otherwise it's always going to be hard to get laws passed that benefit the people, not the corporations." Roger Ebert reviews 'Sicko' in the new movies section.
News RSS