This is all pretty much common knowledge nowadays, when every motherfucker on the planet wants to devote web-pages and books and albums to how incompetent and villainous and so on this presidential hack might be.

What makes it all seem fresh, vital, however, is the manner in which it is presented.

The first ten minutes of the film are a tour de force of montage editing. Sergei Eisenstein, that other left-wing film-crafter with a flair for the cutting and pasting, is no doubt looking down on Moore's work here and smiling a little, although probably thinking there should be more stone lions, really. A few more boats wouldn't go amiss, Michael, you lazy motherfucker.

However visceral this opening salvo may be, though, it is immediately kicked in the balls by Moore's reliance on mawkish, patronising sentimentality. The footage he chooses for to illustrate the events of September 11 2001 is incredibly powerful, but the manner in which he utilises it renders it fairly impotent, something unthinkable to anyone who sat staring at that news-coverage a few years back. Commendably, he doesn't show the towers at all, but what he does show, ie, grieving onlookers, bemused, weeping pedestrians, he cripples with slow-motion and a cloyingly sentimental musical score. Compare this to the footage of the columbine shooting in his last film. The CCTV footage scarring the screen with ghostly predators as anguished emergency phone calls were relayed on the soundtrack made for a deeply unsettling and incredibly powerful experience. I mean no disrespect or offence to anyone by the following statement, but the representation of 9/11 in Moore's film is laughable. Also, the inter-cutting of Bush reading to a roomful of primary school children as the events in New York unfold is intended to evoke revulsion, but the sight of this obviously bewildered individual actually goes someway to creating a sense of pity.

Which is a pretty big flaw, all being told.

It's not the only flaw, for sure. At times, there is a decidedly unpleasant hint of racism and xenophobia running through the proceedings, most evident in the round-up of coalition countries half-way in, which sees fit to represent each nation via a second long glimpse of a cultural stereotype. For the Netherlands we get a bloke smoking pot. For Morocco we get a bunch of monkeys sitting at a table. It's fairly fucking offensive, is what.