OllieSuave-007 Saw this documentary at a college English class. It is about the closure of a General Motors (GM) plant at Flint, Michigan, which resulted in the loss of 30,000 jobs. Therefore, filmmaker Michael Moore tries to get an interview with and confront GM CEO Roger Smith.The film takes a look at the aftermath of the layoffs and the many lives it effects, and the quest in holding employers accountable. I remember one such scene where a lady had to resort to go about other means in getting food, like skinning a rabbit, which startled just about the class watching.Some eyeopening and educational stuff here.Grade B

SnoopyStyle Michael Moore recounts his prosperous working middle class life as a child in GM company town of Flint, Michigan. Everybody worked for GM except for Michael. He leaves his small paper he created to go to San Francisco. It doesn't go well and he returns to Flint. In 1985, GM CEO Roger Smith closes factories in Flint. Michael goes on a quest to get an interview with Roger Smith.The criticism has centered on Michael Moore's manipulation of events in the movie. It's a valid argument if this is being measured against traditional documentaries. As a journalistic documentary, this has many flaws and possibly fatal flaws. As a reality-TV persuasion, this is a real ground breaker. While not every line is correct, the overall sentiment hits on a greater truth. Michael may portray himself as the underdog but he's a real giant.

Red-Barracuda Roger & Me is Michael Moore's first documentary feature film. It's more personal than his other films in that it focuses on his hometown of Flint, Michigan. More specifically on the aftermath of the closure of the General Motors plant that was based there, which resulted in the loss of 30,000 jobs and subsequently led to a steep decline of Flint itself. The town developed such a poverty and crime problem that it was named as 'the worst place to live in America'.It's a blackly comic work which constantly contrasts the people afflicted by the upheaval with the attitude of the town's elite. It also takes a dim view of GM itself and its chairman Roger Smith in particular. The narrative thrust of the film sees Moore pursue Smith to try and get a face-to-face interview. Needless to say, he is successful in this endeavour in only an extremely limited way, only getting a very brief exchange late on in proceedings. Moore's approach to this and the film in general is typically manipulative though, setting up situations where he knows he will be rebuffed and including some unfair interview snippets with some quite innocent people, making them look stupid with editing for cheap laughs. When I viewed Moore's work for the first time, this sort of stuff didn't very much concern me but now I find it a little too underhand for my liking.Having said all this, if you accept that documentaries tend to be biased to some degree, I have to acknowledge that Moore does at the very least shine a light on a situation which otherwise would have been long forgotten by the majority of people by now and does give some disenfranchised folks a platform of sorts. And he is a skilled film-maker so his documentaries certainly are dynamic and entertaining which does help in getting a point across more effectively than a more sober treatment would. Roger & Me may be an attack on corporate America but it's often the smaller, stranger details that remain with you, such as the segment about the slightly unhinged lady who breeds and kills rabbits in her back yard in order to survive. On the whole, this film has all of the same negatives that all of Moore's subsequent work has, yet like those too it hammers home its point in an entertaining enough manner to remain in the memory and it occasionally hits upon an interesting truth every so often.

Syl I first heard of this documentary when it was praised by Chicago legendary film critics, Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel on their television show. This documentary shows how General Motors built and destroyed Flint, Michigan. The factories closed and unemployment soared as thousands became jobless. Michael Moore is a rebel with a cause. He wants justice and fairness. The fat cats like Roger Smith, Chairman of General Motors, is the Roger in the film. Moore has watched his hometown of Flint, Michigan into a ghost town with abandoned houses and closed businesses. Moore wanted answers from Roger about how he could allow this happen to Flint. It is obvious that Roger Smith and the other fat cats have no conscience about closing factories and laying off thousands of employees.