Moore Yanks our chain with his tour of Europe

Where To Invade Next (15) Verdict: Provocative documentary

A TALENT for Left-wing polemic has made U.S. documentary-maker Michael Moore a rich man; he is said to be worth upwards of £33million.

Whether his latest film will greatly swell his fortune is questionable, however. His 2002 gun-control tirade Bowling For Columbine was a huge commercial success, while 2004’s Fahrenheit 9/11, skewering George W. Bush and the War on Terror, remains the highest-grossing documentary of all time.

But it is hard to see even liberal America embracing Where To Invade Next, so forcefully does it assert that the self-styled greatest nation on earth is irredeemably backward in practically every department of everyday life that really matters.

To make his point, Moore travels to Europe. The film’s title is ironic; since World War II, invading other countries has got the U.S. nowhere, he says, so now is the time to raid them intellectually rather than militarily, and bring home better ways of doing things.

It’s a nice idea, but there’s a visual paradox to deal with first. Baseball-capped, unkempt and more obese than ever, indeed looking as American as a triple-helping of apple pie with whipped cream, Moore perfectly embodies the average European’s image of the kind of insular, flag-waving Yank who doesn’t even own a passport.

Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. He first visits Italy, where he finds that workers are treated infinitely better than at home, their numerous paid holidays even including a 15-day honeymoon entitlement, without being any less productive.

Then he goes to France, where school dinners are worthy of multiple Michelin stars compared with much of the mush they dish out across the U.S. (and here, for that matter). In Slovenia, he admires free college education, as opposed to the all-American way of ‘sending 22-year-olds into a debtors’ prison’.

He likes the way Norway’s prison system focuses on rehabilitation, not revenge. He is cheered by Germany’s insistence on teaching its children about the horrors of the Holocaust, and wishes America would do the same about slavery.

On and on he goes, and although he conspicuously fails to visit the UK, we’ll forgive him that.

Where it’s harder to indulge him is in his highly selective, sometimes downright disingenuous, choice of subject matter.

And in certain areas it’s hard to know whether he’s the sucker, or doing the suckering.

There’s lots of fascinating material in this (overlong) documentary. But ... French kids don’t touch Coca-Cola? Pull the other one.