Bowling for Columbine

Bowling for Columbine. 2002 Metro Goldwin Mayer, United Artists & Alliance Atlantis.
Featuring: Michael Moore, Charlton Heston, Matt Stone, Marilyn Manson, Dick Clark
Written, Produced and Directed by Michael Moore
Available at Amazon.

Michael Moore's award winning documentary about America's obsession with guns and violence. The title of the movie stems from the story (since disproven) that hours before they embarked on their killing spree in Columbine High School back in 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold attending their favorite class: a no-credit bowling course held at an alley near the high school. Two years later, that same bowling alley would become the scene of a robbery and triple homicide.

Through the course of the movie, Moore meets with members of the Michigan Militia, which once counted Oklahoma City bombers Timothy McVeigh and his accomplice Terry Nichols, and extensively interviews Nichols' brother James. He also spends time investigating the role of the media in America's climate of fear and anger, which includes interviews with South Park co-creator Matt Stone, who grew up in Littleton, as well as Marilyn Manson, whose music (along with KMFDM's) was initially blamed by some people as the main cause of the massacre in Colorado. Manson concluded his interview by saying he would listen to the kids at Columbine, since "no one else did". Moore also makes sure to touch on violent video games, movies, and South Park being blamed for the shootings. Easy scapegoat.

Moore also took two Columbine survivors, Mark Taylor and Richard Castaldo, to K-Mart's then-world headquarters in Michigan, to try to claim a refund on the bullets still lodged in their bodies (Moore disclosed that some of the weapons and ammunition used by Harris and Klebold were purchased at the local store). K-Mart officials tried several times to evade the issue before deciding to phase out the sale of handgun ammunition.

The documentary's defining moment (my opinion) is Moore's unscheduled interview with a sickly (Alzheimer's disease, early stages of prostate cancer) Charlton Heston at his home. Ten days after Columbine, the NRA and its then-president Heston held a pro-gun rally in Littleton just ten days after the shootings, where Heston held up a rifle and yelled his now infamous catchphrase "From my cold dead hands", before trying to justify the NRA going ahead with its show despite the protests of Littleton's citizens. Heston vaguely blames "ethnic differences" on America's problems with violence, and he doesn't seem capable of answering Moore's questions to the director's satisfaction before famously walking off, leaving Moore standing alone in his driveway. That, I think, along with the surveillance footage taken from Columbine High School from the time Klebold and Harris waltzed in and started shooting, sending students running for their lives, is the toughest part of the movie to watch.

Highly, highly recommended.