Capitalism: A Love Story

Michael Moore’s “love story” makes some rather desultory additions to his trademark collection of jabs and jibes at corporate America. But it’s not really up to its proclaimed tasks—of critiquing capitalism as an economic and political system, and of throwing some valuable light, political or otherwise, on the economic calamities of recent times. Moore does get an obviously provocative array of issues into this somewhat dazed little film—foreclosure debacles, bank bailouts, student loan schemes, “dead peasant insurance,” underpaid airline pilots, health-insurance outrages, factory closures, mortgage derivatives, etc., etc. Much of that comes amid the customary Moore mixtures of sorrowful documentary, satirical jiggering of archival footage, bits of semi-autobiographical sentiment, and a moment or two of Roger and Me-style antics attempting to catch CEOs on camera. At its occasional best, Moore’s Capitalism is stirring and astute—never more so than with some long-overlooked footage of FDR making the case for a “new citizen’s bill of rights” in 1944. But quite a lot of it is a sketchy re-hash of stuff you probably already know. Tinseltown. Rated R —