httpss://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6Wc5fde7Rs
Photo If the news that the documentarian Michael Moore was releasing a surprise film called “Michael Moore in TrumpLand” had you expecting a rollicking, full-force attack on Donald J. Trump, prepare to be disappointed.
Mr. Moore, one of filmmaking’s best-known provocateurs, seems to be decidedly uninterested in provoking anyone with this new offering, which had its hastily arranged premiere Tuesday night at the IFC Center in Greenwich Village.
Filmed over two nights early this month in Wilmington, Ohio, the movie captures a live stage performance by Mr. Moore in a town that leans heavily Trump.
Mr. Moore has a knack for going into the lion’s den and poking the lion, but not .
Photo The stand-up comedy routine – tame and sometimes lame stuff; Mr. Moore is no George Carlin – gives way to a stretch that sounds like a commencement address before Mr. Moore gets to his real purpose, which is to support Mrs. Clinton.
The pope, Mr. Moore says, has been surprisingly activist since assuming the office; he postulates that Francis was biding his time for decades, patiently and unobtrusively waiting for his chance, which he seized once he ascended to the papacy.
Mr. Moore has basically made an earnest but not very entertaining pro-Clinton campaign film, occasionally funny, momentarily heartfelt when he takes up the subject of universal health care and the lives lost for lack of it.
The performance in Wilmington was filmed just as the 2005 tape that captured Mr. Trump talking about groping women was hitting the news; Mr. Moore’s stage material contains no mention of that controversy, which has since consumed the presidential campaign.
“Michael Moore in TrumpLand” is not rated.