Chak de Sicko

While Australia produces quality films -- Kenny was the funniest movie of 2006 and winner of many an Aussie film award -- Bollywood & Hollywood get my theatre dollars. Aradhna and I recently went to see Chak De! India, an upbeat Hindi film in which Shahrukh Khan coaches a ragtag group of women field hockey players with predictable results. The cliched premise is overcome by its portrayal of India's ethnic diversity and overt display of female strength and potential. Best scene: The team trashes a McDonald's while opening a can of whoop ass over a couple of miscreants. Great fun.

Not so Sicko. It's a piercing manifesto aimed at a US shortcoming, something no one does better than Michael Moore. Offering more red meat to the blindly patriotic who demonise him, Moore poses a devastating question to his fellow US citizens: "Who are we?" No one wants to address that issue in a country where 50 million uninsured men, women and children are left to fend for themselves in a system designed to punish those who are poor and/or sick.

My problem: What purpose does Sicko serve? Shame those reaping the benefits of such a one-sided system into changing their lucrative practices? Generate an uprising among a US population that cheered its country's invasion and occupation of a country that posed no threat to its national interests? I can see how the film may be informative to those who don't know the US healthcare system is dominated by insurance companies that are beholden to stockholders and lobbyists. Or to those who don't know that other countries view proper health coverage for all citizens as mandatory (such as here in Australia). But who doesn't know these shameful things?

I shared the theatre with only two other people and caught up with them in the lobby. They were an Asian couple. I asked the woman what she thought of the film. She said it was good. Why, I asked. "Because it's true."

Enough said.