Bowling for Columbine

Reviewed by Darren Guy

A teenager goes into k-mart to return the bullet that was sold to the 17 year old killer, who put him in a wheelchair. He was one of the survivors of the Columbine high school massacre in Denver. He is left waiting to speak to the manager for 3 hours. Michael Moore’s film is doing the rounds. Bowling for Columbine is funny, shocking, disturbing and upsetting. Michael Moore takes us into the madness of the USA. And particular into a paranoid, scared world – where banks offer free guns if you join them – to K-mart were teenagers can buy bullets by the hundreds, to be used in automatic weapons. And where modern US living is more dangerous than the Wild West. We get glimpses of the minds that made the Timothy McVies of the USA; we see the madness of people like Charlton Heston and his friends in the National rifle association. In this film, most Americans have lost their minds. Michael Moore makes the links – the pride of arms industry – The pride of gun clubs. Aside of the brave survivors and their families of Columbine, we see how on the day of the massacre the USA dropped more bombs on Kosovo than at any other time in the war. But the most outspoken hero of the film is the god of Goth Marilyn Manson – when asked what he would have said to the kids who carried out the Columbine massacre his reply was ‘I wouldn’t say a single word, I’d listen to them, that’s what no-one did’ You must see this film.