bobzmcishl Review of Where to Invade Next

Where to Invade Next (2015)

Should be debating the issues brought out in this film

[8/10 · 8 January 2016]

Where To Invade Next is one of Moore's best because it is funny, has a lighter touch, but still hits the mark on raising questions about why America can't adopt some of the great things other countries are doing. Business does it all the time. It is called adopting "best practices." If we can steal good ideas from other companies, why not from other countries? That is the premise of the film and he takes us on a very photogenic tour around the world to countries that have much they could offer us here at home. Moore has a good eye and good wit in choosing citizens of these countries to get his point across. Much of the power of his film is in how he uses children to get across some of these ideas, like actually having good food to eat in the school cafeteria instead of junk. Children are again used to show how Germany teaches the lessons of the holocaust to their children to make sure it never happens again. Of all the moments in the film, that was the most powerful for me. It was totally unexpected and an emotional high point. I also enjoyed the discussion of the education system in Finland, where the focus is on learning and not on test taking, and not pushing tons of homework on the kids. Finland has also created an education model that stresses uniform equality of education. There is no such thing as shopping around for the best schools like we have in the U.S. All of the schools are equally good. That is a conversation we should be having here. Ideas that are more well known are also covered such as the high number of vacation days given in European countries, and time off for honeymoons, and having a baby. Labor unions are still powerful in Europe so the workers still have strong middle class wages and an actual voice on company boards. It was amazing to listen to CEO's from these companies talk about their employee concerns, something rarely heard here in the U.S. Moore is upfront about the cost of some of these services and yes, these countries have a higher tax burdens but when you consider what they get in return, it is well worth the money as Moore explains in the movie. The huge kicker for us is that so much of our tax dollars go into our military that other countries just don't have. In one European countries, the taxes taken out of worker paychecks are itemized in detail to explain what services they pay for. Here, as we all know, there is no breakout of how are tax money is used. The movies closes on how women can shape world events for the better and it is a very powerful message. In his subject interviews, they remind us that the practices employed in these countries are not new; most of them started in the U.S., such as the concept that executives could be put in jail for fraudulent practices as they did in Iceland. The Iceland prosecutor that put multiple banking executives in jail for the 2008 financial meltdown, got his ideas from what we did in the savings and loan scandal, where we put executives in jail. There is no doubt some of the practices in other countries may not work out all that great here given the scale of the United States and our cultural and ethnic diversity, but we aren't even trying. In this review I have only covered about half of the examples shown by Moore. We saw Where To Invade Next at the Palm Springs Film Festival and at the end of the movie, it got the greatest round of applause. Probably because non Michael Moore fans were not in attendance, but this is a well made movie and it shows the sophistication Moore has reached in his documentary making. I gave the movie 8/10 because about midway through I thought it lagged a little, but then picked up strongly at the end. This is an ideal movie to watch in a group and then discuss the concepts afterward.