Michael Moore Hates America is a documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 directed by Mike Wilson

Mike Wilson (filmmaker)

Mike Wilson Mike Wilson Mike Wilson (born February 18, 1976, in Moberly, Missouri is an American documentary filmmaker, known for the 2004 documentary Michael Moore Hates America.Wilson is a libertarian and an atheist and a writer for Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood...

 that criticizes director Michael Moore

Michael Moore

Michael Francis Moore is an American filmmaker, author, social critic and activist. He is the director and producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, which is the highest-grossing documentary of all time. His films Bowling for Columbine and Sicko also place in the top ten highest-grossing documentaries...

. It premiered September 12, 2004, in Dallas, Texas

Dallas, Texas

Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...

, at the American Film Renaissance

American Film Renaissance

American Film Renaissance is a non-profit film institute best known for its conservative film festivals, held annually in a different location.-Mission:...

 film festival

Film festival

A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...

.

Details

The movie and its poster are patterned after Moore's film Roger & Me

Roger & Me

Roger & Me is a 1989 American documentary film directed by Michael Moore. Moore portrays the regional negative economic impact of General Motors CEO Roger Smith's summary action of closing several auto plants in Flint, Michigan, costing 30,000 people their jobs at the time and economically...

, during which Moore attempts to chase down Roger Bonham Smith

Roger Bonham Smith

Roger Bonham Smith was the Chairman and CEO of General Motors Corporation from 1981 to 1990, and is widely known as the main subject of Michael Moore's 1989 documentary film Roger & Me....

 for an interview. In this case, Wilson seeks an interview with Moore. Wilson also adopts other aspects of Moore's style in his efforts at satirizing

Satire

Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 Moore. For instance, Wilson interviews a mix of Americans across the country and well-known figures like conservatives Dinesh D'Souza

Dinesh D'Souza

Dinesh D'Souza is an author and public speaker and a former Robert and Karen Rishwain Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He is currently the President of The King's College in New York City. D'Souza is a noted Christian apologist and conservative writer and speaker....

, David Horowitz

David Horowitz

David Joel Horowitz is an American conservative writer and policy advocate. Horowitz was raised by parents who were both members of the American Communist Party. Between 1956 and 1975, Horowitz was an outspoken adherent of the New Left before rejecting Marxism completely...

 and Andrew Breitbart

Andrew Breitbart

Andrew Breitbart is an American publisher, commentator for the Washington Times, author, an occasional guest commentator on various news programs who has served as an editor for the Drudge Report website...

, liberal

Liberalism

Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

 Albert Maysles and fellow libertarians

Libertarianism

Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...

 such as Penn Jillette

Penn Jillette

Penn Fraser Jillette is an American magician, comedian, illusionist, juggler, bassist and a best-selling author known for his work with fellow illusionist Teller in the team Penn & Teller, and advocacy of atheism, libertarian philosophy, free-market economics, and scientific skepticism.-Early...

 and Tim Slagle

Tim Slagle

Tim Slagle is an American stand-up comedian, writer/editor and a political pundit. His material leans towards political satire. He is known for his regular contributions to Liberty Magazine...

. Wilson revisits some of Moore's shooting locations and subjects from Roger & Me

Roger & Me

Roger & Me is a 1989 American documentary film directed by Michael Moore. Moore portrays the regional negative economic impact of General Motors CEO Roger Smith's summary action of closing several auto plants in Flint, Michigan, costing 30,000 people their jobs at the time and economically...

and Bowling for Columbine

Bowling for Columbine

Bowling for Columbine is a 2002 documentary film written, directed, produced, and narrated by Michael Moore. The film explores what Michael Moore suggests are the causes for the Columbine High School massacre and other acts of violence with guns...

, and discredits many aspects of Moore's films.

Wilson's main criticism is that Moore misrepresents the truth by (1) staging events and (2) deftly cutting sequences to distort the truth. As an example of (1), Michael Wilson offers the scene in Bowling for Columbine where Michael Moore gets a gun on opening a bank account. An interview with the bank employees suggests that Michael Moore had arranged for the gun to be delivered to the bank ahead of time so he could walk outside with it immediately after opening the bank account. As an example of (2), Michael Wilson offers the scenes in Bowling for Columbine of NRA

National Rifle Association

The National Rifle Association of America is an American non-profit 501 civil rights organization which advocates for the protection of the Second Amendment of the United States Bill of Rights and the promotion of firearm ownership rights as well as marksmanship, firearm safety, and the protection...

 president Charlton Heston

Charlton Heston

Charlton Heston was an American actor of film, theatre and television. Heston is known for heroic roles in films such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, El Cid, and Planet of the Apes...

 speaking. The scenes are cut together from different speeches; however, in the film they may be construed to be from one speech given shortly after the Columbine shooting

Columbine High School massacre

The Columbine High School massacre occurred on Tuesday, April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Columbine, an unincorporated area of Jefferson County, Colorado, United States, near Denver and Littleton. Two senior students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, embarked on a massacre, killing 12...

 at a meeting in Denver.

Wilson acknowledges that he misrepresented the name of the movie on numerous occasions when interviewing individuals for it.

Reception

Reviews were generally favorable. Some favored the film's examination of Moore's methods. Movie critics Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert

Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...

 and Richard Roeper

Richard Roeper

Richard E. Roeper is an American columnist and film critic for The Chicago Sun-Times and now a co-host on The Roe Conn Show on WLS-AM...

, of Ebert and Roeper, gave the film Two Thumbs Up.