Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

From the back of the DVD cover of "The Big One": "If Fortune 500 companies are posting record-setting profits, why do they continue laying off thousands of workers?"That's the fundamental question this movie poses to the viewer.In "The Big One," filmmaker Michael Moore goes on a Random House book tour promoting "Downsize This! Random Threats from an Unarmed American." In a hilarious whirlwind tour across the United States that takes him from Milwaukee, to Philadelphia, to Ft. Lauderdale, to Rockford, to Des Moines, to Harvard University and finally to his hometown of Flint, Michigan, Moore asks that fundamental question while also exposing corporate corruption and callous politicians in the Clinton-era America of the mid-1990s, and also playing good-humored pranks on the assorted media escorts hired to keep him out of trouble.Moore's book tour travels are mixed with blazing stand-up comedy and visits with out-of-work or soon-to-be out-of-work employees at these major companies that are making record-setting profits but continue to lay off their workers, when they should be hiring more workers. He also talks clandestinely with employees at a Des Moines Borders who were forced out of a book-signing and also had money being taken out of their paychecks to pay for a doctor as part of an out-of-state health care plan. These same workers were also trying to organize a labor union.He also meets a woman at a book-signing who was laid off earlier that day and she wanted desperately to meet him. We are also quite startled to learn that TWA has found cheap labor in prison convicts for their phone-answering services. At the end, he's granted with his first (and only) interview with the C.E.O. of Nike, which has a company in Indonesia that hires underage workers. Moore offers numerous challenges to which the chairman turns them all down - exposing his callousness and greed - and the C.E.O. finally caves to donate $10,000 to Flint, Michigan's struggling school system."The Big One" is perhaps Moore's most underrated feature. Of course the film seems like a time capsule 11 years later since corporate downsizing and corruption have taken a backseat to terrorism, America's simultaneous conflicts with terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the global War on Terror. But I also have to say that "The Big One" is perhaps Moore's funniest film to date (my personal favorite is his 2004 anti-Bush "Fahrenheit 9/11," and I have yet to read "Downsize This!"). But underneath the biting comedy, there is also a strong sense of anger and sadness that Moore delivers with some pretty strong passion. Some bits of "The Big One" are just downright depressing. He knows something's wrong with all the big corporations that continue making record profits but lay off the workers when they should be hiring more.While the movie is incredibly funny, Moore has been criticized for not offering solutions to all the people he encounters. The answer is simple, he just doesn't have any. There's nothing he can do to change the minds of greedy executives who would send jobs abroad rather than keep them here in America because they don't have to pay the workers as much. He's only one man who has been the ire of corporate America for nearly 20 years now, and it doesn't seem like he's any closer to winning his crusade."The Big One" is Moore's "Big One," all right, full of humor and satire aimed at his one true enemy, corporate America. It's not his best movie, but it proves that he still has the ability to expose corruption everywhere he sees it and show us that something is indeed wrong in this Land of the Free.10/10

I applaud Michael Moore for addressing gnarly, difficult subjects that other commentators and especially the news media are too chicken to tackle. This 1997 BBC documentary follows his '96 book tour promoting "Downsize This!". In the film, Moore travels to small town and Rust Belt America -- places often ignored by other social critics in favor of big cities and glamor locations. The realism and problems of ordinary, middle class, Middle Americans is one of the highlights of the film. This is an honest look at the economic problems in the US circa the 90s.One of Moore's strengths and weaknesses is just how funny he is -- he's a skilled speaker and essentially a talented stand-up comic, whose material is politically skewed and occasionally self-deprecating. This is disarming, and also plain, laugh-out-loud funny. I watched this film recently with a group of people who were in stitches, even though some of the material (in 2005) is a bit outdated by recent historical events. Some of Moore's funniest material is when he confronts executives or stone faced PR honchos, and waits for their predictable, canned, nonsensical remarks designed to give little information and obscure the issue at hand. It's powerful stuff, watching the rich and selfish defending their privileges, and a scathing commentary on economic inequality in what we like to think is the freest, richest, most egalitarian society in the world.HOWEVER -- Moore often weakens his own arguments by using shoddy and overly simplistic examples. Comparing a torn-down factory in Flint Michigan to the Oklahoma City bombing is very tacky, and not even a good analogy -- the loss in Oklahoma was human life, including many pre-school children...the loss of the Murrah building itself is insignificant. Unemployed workers in Flint do actually have other options, like moving elsewhere for work. It's a cheap shot. Another lame effort occurs when Moore challenges the president of Nike to build a shoe factory in Flint, over his objections that "American's don't want to make shoes". Moore claims he will get 100 workers together who do want to produce footwear for Nike -- then the film shows a pitiful rally of a couple dozen folks, many of whom are small children. Closeup photography obscures the fact that Moore could NOT find 100 willing workers in Flint, despite all the well-publicized poverty...is it true that Americans are unwilling to manufacture shoes? We'll never know.Another flaw is that Michael Moore is not especially honest about his own status in all this. He's a very successful pundit and filmmaker (although this movie was made years before the phenom of "Fahrenheit 911"), and had already published several books and had a TV series. He's wealthy by the standards of most Americans, a celebrity and immune to the economic realities that he is describing. That tends to make his criticism rather facile. For example, he fails to explain how (as in the example above) Americans earning even minimum wage, about $5 per hour, can possibly compete in manufacturing with Third World workers who make 50 cents an hour...no matter how hardworking or willing those Americans are. This is the hard reality facing both employees and employers, and it's curiously left on the table here without discussion...except perhaps to suggest (vaguely) that companies should make business decisions on charitable grounds, rather than economic ones.Still with all it's flaws, I find this (and other) Moore documentaries a valuable contribution to National debate, especially along Red State/ Blue State lines. The most valuable historical information in "The Big One" is whenvoters (talking about the '96 Clinton/Dole presidential race) say that "both candidates are the same" and "turnout will be historically low" and "who cares who is in office". Those comments are truly astonishing in light of current events and political atmosphere, and this is only 8 years later. The world has been turned on it's axis by current events! Yet it's important to realize how recent that change has occurred, and extremely valuable to look at evaluate the political and economic changes of just the last decade.In conclusion: a challenging and interesting documentary, with some flaws, but extremely funny. Worth watching.

Very good documentary on the uncaring greed of corporate Amerika. I was, as usual, vastly amused by the corporate "whores" who went scampering for the shadows when Moore turned his light on them. Many wouldn't even let him stay in the lobby. These little weasel butt kissers will someday, if there is any justice, feel the unemployment boot crunching down on their own pathetic, fearful little craniums. Amazing how some folks can downsize their brains into feeling "my company" is always right: they need to stop genuflecting at the alter of this false god and wake up to a world of charity for their fellow man. I've been watching Moore for a while, and I don't always agree with him, but I feel he is dead on in his indictment of American conglomerates and their villainous leaders. The reply of Nike's CEO to Moore's question about his employees in the far east was telling indeed: "I don't care." Chilling.

The Big One remains my favorite Moore film yet, even though I found `Bowling for Columbine' to be more `well-made' (i.e. – slick). What I find The Big One, a documentary shot during Moore's book tour for `Downsize this' has is more humor, more heart and less histrionics. While Moore continues to champion for the little guy against big corporation who have wronged them in the name of Capitalism, there is none of the preachiness that can be interpreted within Bowling for Columbine. Instead, Moore follows in the tradition of `TV Nation' and his eventual brilliant Bravo/BBC series `The Awful Truth' and makes his point with some humor for good measure. It doesn't surprise me that Bowling for Columbine was more criticized and hit America's radar screens a lot heavier than this relatively unknown film. The Big One's content and crusades against Corporate America are less inflammatory than addressing gun control and attacking Moses. Rather, The Big One comes across as Michael Moore `light.' Despite the fact that I relish in watching Moore take on the guys that I can't, I still enjoyed this one the most so far, probably because in my opinion, Moore's intelligence and heart are captured best in this film above any other and remind us that he is someone who isn't just going for publicity, but is also someone who really does do what he does to help people.--Shelly