Where to Invade Next

Down-home polemicist Michael Moore's latest leftist provocation is less of a Fahrenheit 9/11 state-of-the-nation address and closer in tone and approach to Sicko, his scattershot hymn to universal healthcare. Where to Invade Next similarly attacks American social policy by looking outward to schemes in foreign utopias like Italy (better workers' rights), Iceland (a better deal for women), Norway (less draconian prisons), Germany (a healthier acceptance of the sins of its national past) and France (better school meals). The gimmick of an increasingly unkempt-looking Moore "invading" these countries is thin, but the upbeat content, resourcefully filmed across three continents with a small crew, and gently cajoled testimony from Italian CEOs and Portuguese cops, speaks for itself. Moore customarily cherry-picks to support his thesis, but amid the folksily idyllic picture of not-for-profit initiatives he dares to contextualise the mass murder of Anders Breivik in Norway and makes a powerful comparison with a montage of black American prisoners being abused by white officers, offering this up as a new and shameful form of slavery in a country with a lot to learn.