The Hollywood Reporter
May 17, 2002, Friday
'Bowling for Columbine'

Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" is a flat-out brilliant cinematic essay on the issue of guns and violence in American society. In the early going, Moore might have you doubled over with laughter. By the end, the impact of the questions he raises in this two-hour film are disturbing enough that you might not be able to speak for a while. Thoughtful, inquisitive, imaginative and troubling, "Bowling" is a kick in the butt no matter where you stand on the role guns play in American culture. "Bowling" is poised for potentially strong business at the boxoffice to go with its critical acclaim. And who knows what will happen here, where it is the first docu selected for Competition in 46 years.

Once you realize Moore is a member of the National Rifle Assn., you know this isn't going to be the usual harangue about gun control from a leftist kook. His primary goal is, of course, to entertain. Moore has a shrewd sense of himself as an Everyman's Mike Wallace, a lumbering, rotund figure who ambles into people's lives to pose questions in a seriocomic manner that takes the edge off his temerity. From a kid who tests bomb-making recipes from "The Anarchist's Cookbook" and a producer of the TV show "Cops" to NRA president Charlton Heston, these encounters are often funny. Yet Moore moves past this "Candid Camera" gimmick to doggedly stick to questions that rote answers will not turn aside.

"What is it about Americans, guns and violence?" Moore asks. The usual answers range from the bloody history of the United States to the negative influences of the media, a broad-ranging group of scapegoats that include Marilyn Manson and video games. Yet Moore points to the even bloodier histories of nations where gun-related deaths are few. And blaming Manson makes as much sense as blaming bowling, things the shooters at Columbine High School both enjoyed.

As Moore digs deeper and continues to ask hard questions that stump everyone, a grim reality sets in for those of us who live in a nation that has armed itself with a quarter of a billion household firearms. In "Bowling," there are no easy answers and often no answers at all, just a number of very uneasy questions..

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