Tommy Denton

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Anyone familiar with the cinematic work of Michael Moore will understand that the man has no intention of committing dispassionate journalism.

An Academy Award winner whose now-classic documentaries "Fahrenheit 9/11" in 2004 and "Bowling for Columbine" in 2002 demonstrated the power of documentary advocacy, the scruffy Moore employs stinging humor, confrontation and ambush of his targets to elicit often brutal but telling exposés.

Fair and balanced he's not, nor should anyone expect his next production to deviate from his proven methods. "SiCKO," portraying what Moore calls "the health care industry's greed and control over America's political system," premiered Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival and will be released June 29 in U.S. theaters.

Alas, less than two weeks before Cannes opened, on May 7, Moore received an official notice from the U.S. Treasury indicating that he was the target of a federal investigation. In March, Moore took a trip to Cuba, which he said was related to the filming of his documentary and during which he insisted he broke no U.S. laws. He was joined by some first-responders with lingering illnesses from their exposure in New York during the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

According to Moore, those first-responders in his entourage, lacking health insurance in the United States to cover the costly diagnosis and treatment of their mysterious maladies, sought to consult with physicians in Cuba's universal health care system.

Guardians in the U.S. Treasury were duly troubled and offended by the ostensible financial benefits that would derive from the U.S. contingent's brief journey to the ominous dictatorship presided over by Fidel Castro, teetering at death's door. Thus, the notice of the investigation.

In a May 12 letter to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Moore demanded that he call off the dogs.

"I believe that the decision to conduct this investigation," Moore wrote, "represents the latest example of the Bush administration abusing the federal government for raw, crass, political purposes."

He also accused the government of knowing since last October that he intended to include the Cuba segment in his film. He effectively accused the administration of waiting for the optimum moment -- the opening of the Cannes Film Festival -- to array the full force of the federal government to attack a political adversary's exercise of First Amendment protections of free expression.

Now, Moore's own equally keen sense for exploiting political controversy to his own commercial gain should be self-evident. How else explain his purple prose to Paulson and its timely, promiscuous public distribution for greatest publicity effect?

But just because Moore's cinematic techniques can arouse the rare spasm of sympathy for the "ambushed" Charlton Heston in "Bowling for Columbine" and a number of off-guard members of Congress in "Fahrenheit 9/11," his exposés also contain hard facts and harder truths.

"SiCKO" promises equally revealing insights, focusing on the consequences of financial and political leverage exerted by health care and insurance corporations.

As Moore wrote in his letter to Paulson, "It is well documented that the industry is very concerned about the impact of 'SiCKO.' I can understand why that industry's main recipient of its contributions -- President Bush -- would want to harass, intimidate and potentially prevent this film from having its widest possible audience."

For all his bluster and maneuvering, Moore's central theme of America's current excessively costly, inefficient health care system bears up under repeated analysis.

The Commonwealth Fund, a private, nonpartisan foundation supporting independent research on health and social issues, last week reported results from two studies showing that the United States ranks last among other wealthy nations for access, efficiency, equity and the quality of health outcomes.

"The United States stands out as the only nation in these studies that does not ensure access to health care through universal coverage and promotion of a 'medical home' for patients," said Commonwealth Fund president Karen Davis. "The U.S. spends twice what the average industrialized country spends on health care, but we're clearly not getting value for the money."

So Michael Moore decided to make an unflattering documentary about that system, to poke around and probably ambush a few influential people about some embarrassing, inconvenient truths.

Laughter cannot be the ultimate remedy, but it's a start.

Denton's column appears in the Sunday edition of The Roanoke Times.