It's a shame audiences went off Michael Moore's movies after the heady days of Oscar and Palme d'Or wins in the early 2000s, because despite the stuff his critics never liked about him (the showboating, the stunts, the cherry picking of facts), he's still one of the only voices in culture unafraid to shine a light on what bullshit and how corrupt modern politics and business are.

Structurally, the problem with this film is that on the surface it doesn't seem to have a point. It starts off with the stunning upset of Trump winning the 2016 presidential election – and I don't remember if it was really like this, but it very effectively paints the picture that nobody (including Trump himself) expected him to win right up until election night.

Then it segues into the dumpster fire his hometown of Flint Michigan turned into because of high level corruption in the state government that saw the (poorer) residents given tainted tap water.

He also touches on his favourite themes from his other films including institutionalised racism and gun control. They're all important issues of our time and have been for decades while one generation of American politicians after another have sat on their hands, it just feels a bit overstuffed with points to make and you're left wondering how they all fit together.

Taken at face value it's simply a document about what a shitshow the American political times we live in are, and the effects of how ridiculous the state of politicking in the 21st century is – everything from how a sideshow act like Trump can exist to how the poor and disenfranchised are screwed over yet again.

It's got the stunts (like when he hijacks a truck full of water) and the style – one of a regular, aw-shucks American slob who belies how astute Moore actually is, and his voice and arguments are as urgent and necessary as ever.

But as with the last handful of films of Moore's I've watched, I wonder if he isn't ever tempted to throw his hand up in despair because (just like with the work of other rabble rousers like Lee Camp, Greg Palast and John Pilger) we never learn. Since his last film Capitalism: A Love Story took aim at the Wall Street bankers who let the 2008 GFC happen, absolutely no reforms were made and we're just waiting another decade for it to happen again.

And after lamenting how stupid his countrymen can be to elect such a buffoon to such high office, I watched the movie in early 2025, not long after America was stupid enough to elect him again.