"Bowling for Columbine" Review

This is the cartoon from Bowling for Columbine that depicts the American history of fear.

For the documentary review assignment, I watched Bowling for Columbine, which I've seen sporadically throughout the years, but never the whole way through. I decided to watch it because it talks about the American gun culture, which is extremely relevant now after the Connecticut shooting. I want to give my condolences and prayers to the families of the victims and the community of Newtown before continuing on.

Bowling for Columbine opens with archival footage of various things, such as bowling and automatic guns. Michael Moore goes into a bank that also sells guns and gets an assault rifle, showing what little effort is necessary to obtain a gun. The first 30 minutes or so of the film talks about the lack of gun control in the country and the large gun culture that exists. Moore returns to his home town of Flint, Michigan to interview local militia about gun ownership. Moore continues his description of violent culture by using archival footage to show U.S. military actions in other countries, such as Vietnam and Chile.

Moore transfers to telling the story of Columbine by cutting to black and overlaying an audio track of calls to the police department during and after the shooting at the school. He then uses archival footage from the security cameras of the high school of the shooters and the chaos. Moore spends time talking about what happened and why it happened. Immediately after, he shows footage from the Gun Expo the NRA held in Denver just 10 days after the Columbine shooting. Simultaneously, he shows the protest held on the same day that included family members and friends of victims. This whole segment of the film introduces the problem that exists regarding gun culture and violence. 

Moore goes on to interview various people about the issue of gun control. He raises the question of why does America have such a high amount of gun use, even when other countries watch the same violent movies and play the same violent games as we do? Moore then describes the effects of the media in bringing attention to murders and crimes. Although the crime rates across the country have been decreasing, the media coverage of crime is doubling. Moore uses a brief cartoon (above) to show the American history of constant fear; fear of the Indians, the slaves, etc. Moore travels to Canada and finds that Canadians, although they have large gun ownership, are not as afraid of the world as Americans are. He interviews two Canadians whose homes were broken in to but they still do not lock their doors at night. Moore goes around Toronto testing home doors to see if they are locked and none of them are locked.

The recurring theme of the film is that fear is what leads America to be different than other countries whose cultures also include large amounts of violence. Moore does an exquisite job of explaining this idea while also making it entertaining. There are serious parts of the film, but then there are funny parts. This combination keeps the viewer hooked on while there is serious material being addressed.

I was not impressed with Fahrenheit 9/11, but I really enjoyed Bowling for Columbine. I would highly recommend it to anyone, but particularly those who think increasing gun control is the only solution to the large amounts of shootings. This film does an excellent job of causing the viewer to really think about American culture and reflect on what defines us as Americans.

Bowling for Columbine. 1 hr 59 minutes. Rated R for some violent images and language.