Hamlet23

I saw Dave Chappelle's stand-up act in college a few years ago. At the time, he was known by fans of Half Baked and Robin Hood: Men in Tights, but not very many others. In fact, he was co-billed with Jim Breuer. Two years later, his Comedy Central show made him one of the most famous comedians in America, but For What It's Worth proves that he is as funny on stage as ever. It also provides a few flashes of insight into the events that brought a sudden end to Chappelle's Show after only two seasons, as Chappelle talks skeptically about celebrity status a number of times and tells a story about fans "Rick James, bitch!" at him in public. But psychoanalyzing Chappelle would probably distract people from really enjoying the comedy, and the comedian's personal issues aside, this is 50+ minutes of very funny stuff.

And not the facts, you'll love this film. Stone borrows allegations from several prominent theorists and presents them as if they are unimpeachably true. He also makes up things of his own and throws them in, and you don't know who made up what. The problem, to me, is that this film is presented as a historical movie. You expect some errors and dramatic license in those, and those do exist. But Stone takes the time (3 hours) and style to make JFK seem like a carefully reconstructed docudrama, which it's not. The "100 Errors in JFK" page aside, there are numerous errors in logic made by Stone, and the fictions stand next to the facts.

That's my big problem with the film: not that it pushes theories that are totally false, which it does, but that it relies on the ignorance of its audience to get by. If conspiracy theories weren't so much more popular than the truth, I think a lot of people would have been unable to stomach the way Stone attacks dead people who are innocent but unable to defend themselves, like Clay Shaw and David Ferrie. I found myself disgusted by the way they were treated in the film. They're not fictional characters, they were real people, and Stone is making a buck off the fact that millions of people have been fooled into thinking they murdered John F. Kennedy. Most of that fooling was done by Jim Garrison and his whacko crusade, and by guys like Fletcher Prouty, who were heavily involved with the film. Garrison isn't a hero, and he doesn't deserve the treatment he gets either. I wish I could evaluate the film more on its own merits- it's dramatic, if overlong. I enjoyed Donald Sutherland's scenes despite my disagreement with their point. As a film, it's a mixed bag, with some strong points and some weak ones. As history, it's worse than bad, it's outright dishonest.

I've seen many great movies, but Bowling for Columbine may be the first film I can honestly say I think everyone should see. To some members of any given audience, it will likely be life-changing.

Moore takes on a difficult and controversial subject: America's love affair with the gun. He not only discusses (and shows with footage that would leave anyone shaken) tragic school shootings like the ones at Columbine High School, he examines why America is so unique in its shockingly high number of gun murders (over 11,000 per year). The reason he uncovers -- that it's not video games, TV, music, the breakdown of the family, poverty, unemployment, or even gun prevalence -- is ingenious and spot-on.

Though the focus also includes other subjects, like America's history of violence with the rest of the world and the world's perception of Americans, the movie never feels like a sociology paper. Moore's humor is as provocative as ever, if not more than ever, and much of it is damn funny. Even some of the parts that are downright disturbing get laughs. For example, John Nichols (the brother of Terry Nichols and longtime friend of Timothy McVeigh) -- a man who was involved in the Oklahoma City bomb plot -- is funny even as he frightens us with his views on why guns are necessary; he sleeps with a loaded .44 Magnum under his pillow.

The insights the film provides into the history of the NRA (of which Moore is a longtime member) are also eerie and enlightening. Quite noteworthy is Charlton Heston's explanation of why America suffers from so much more gun violence than Britain or Australia or Canada. The answer is simply too good for me to spoil here.

See this movie. You'll laugh and quite likely cry as well (and you may feel the urge to vomit at times), but you'll go home far more educated and aware of the realities of one of the great social problems in American history.