Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)

Director:

Michael Moore

Writer (WGA):

Michael Moore (written by)

Release Date:

25 June 2004 (USA)

Genre:

Documentary | Comedy | Drama | History | Mystery | War

Tagline:

The temperature where freedom burns!

Plot:

Michael Moore's view on what happened to the United States after September 11; and how the Bush Administration allegedly used the tragic event to push forward its agenda for unjust wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Plot Keywords:

Human Rights | Politics | Death | Dead Children | Crying

Awards:

26 wins & 12 nominations

Cast

Ben Affleck	...	Himself (archive footage)
Stevie Wonder	...	Himself (archive footage)
George W. Bush	...	Himself (archive footage)
James Baker III	...	Himself - Former Secretary of State (archive footage)
Richard Gephardt	...	Himself - Congressman (archive footage)
Tom Daschle	...	Himself - Senator (archive footage)
Jeffrey Toobin	...	Himself - Author of "Too Close to Call" (archive footage)
Al Gore	...	Himself - U.S. Vice President and Senate President (archive footage)
Condoleezza Rice	...	Herself - National Security Advisor (archive footage)
Donald Rumsfeld	...	Himself (archive footage)
Saddam Hussein	...	Himself (archive footage)
George Bush	...	Himself - Former U.S. President (archive footage)
Ricky Martin	...	Himself (archive footage)
Byron Dorgan	...	Himself - Senator in Subcommittee on Aviation (archive footage)
Osama Bin Laden	...	Himself (archive footage)

Also Known As:

Fahrenheit 911 (USA) (working title)
Fahrenheit 9/11 (Argentina) (Spain) [es]
Fahrenheit 11 de Setembro (Brazil) [pt]
Fahrenheit 9/11 (Finland) [fi]
Fahrenheit 9/11 (Greece) [el]

MPAA:

Rated R for some violent and disturbing images, and for language.

Runtime:

122 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Arabic

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Switzerland:14 (canton of Zurich) | USA:R (certificate #40791) | Canada:14A (Alberta/British Columbia/Manitoba/Ontario) | Italy:T | Iceland:12 (video rating) | Canada:14 (Nova Scotia) | Australia:M | Iceland:L | Malaysia:18PL | Hong Kong:IIB | Argentina:13 | Brazil:12 | Canada:G (Quebec) | Chile:14 | Czech Republic:12 | Denmark:11 | Finland:K-15 | France:U | Germany:12 | Ireland:15 | Kuwait:(Banned) | Netherlands:12 | Norway:11 | Peru:14 | Philippines:PG-13 | Portugal:M/12 (theatrical) | Singapore:NC-16 | South Korea:15 | Spain:13 | Sweden:11 | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | UK:15

Filming Locations:

Baghdad, Iraq

Company:

Lions Gate Films

Trivia:

First ever documentary to cross the $100 million mark in the United States.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Narrator: Was it all just a dream?
Al Gore: God bless you, Florida! Thank you!
Narrator: Did the last four years not really happen? Look, there's Ben Affleck. He's often in my dreams. And the Taxi Driver guy. He was there too. And little Stevie Wonder, he seemed so happy... like, like a miracle had taken place. Was it a dream? Or was it real?

Movie Connections:

References "The Beverly Hillbillies" (1962)

Soundtrack:

Rockin' in the Free World

Sloppy, scatter-shot mess that fails to convince

As someone who opposed the Iraq war, I have to say that Fahrenheit 911 was a monumental disappointment. Rather than use existing and available cold hard evidence from credible sources to dispel the myths and bad intelligence that lead to the invasion of Iraq, Michael Moore chooses the low road, watering down his argument with sarcasm and misleading juxtapositions. This documentary focuses on circumstantial evidence which either isn't followed through with or is ultimately a fabrication, such as the accusation that the Bin Laden family received special treatment from the Bush administration in that they were allowed to leave the country while other air traffic was grounded. That sneaky insinuation doesn't correspond with the fact that the Bin Ladens (after being interviewed) were free to fly as was the rest of the country.

Moore uses other cheap tricks to embarrass the Republican party and paint them as a pack of hypocritical heartless neocon chicken hawks. The stunt in which he tries to get congressmen to enlist their children for the war in Iraq to depict them as unwilling to pitch in their own effort is very deceptive. Congress cannot enlist their own children for any war; they have to do that themselves. Mocking the contributions of countries not nearly as prominent as the United States (such as Morocco, Romania, Palau, and the Netherlands) smacks of the sort of superpower arrogance that the antiwar movement purports to hate, and it contributes nothing to the case.

This film does do a somewhat decent job as a time capsule with respect to recalling the feelings and paranoia of post-September 11 America, but at the end of the day, no one's mind is changed. If you went in already against the war, then this film will tell you nothing you didn't already know and will not give you any additional debate ammunition. Bush supporters walking in this film will be highly skeptical and suspicious and will leave with their minds unchanged, and rightly so. This film only serves to galvanize the opposition and weaken the perceived credibility of Bush's critics. It failed in its goal and ultimately fails to be a moving, significant documentary done to alter the course of American politics. 4/10