Manufacturing Dissent is a movie about how Rick Caine and Debbie Melynk no longer trust the work or the intentions of filmmaker Michael Moore, and how maybe you shouldn't either.

The film is a confusing array of soundbites from dozens of people -- Christopher Hitchens, Noam Chomsky, Janeane Garofalo, Errol Morris, Ralph Nader et al, and the general message seems to be manipulation and mendacity in the life and work of Moore, the filmmaker behind Roger & Me, Bowling For Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11 and Sicko, which is currently in theatres.

The Manufacturing Dissent filmmaking team of Caine and Melnyk show footage of Moore winning an Oscar for Bowling For Columbine, they travel to his hometown in Michigan, they show him inspiring young people to vote. The positive slips away quickly, however, and it isn't long before people are telling the camera just why they don't like him.

He didn't pay his bills. He makes stuff up. He fails to give other people credit for their work. He's just not a good guy. He may have inadvertently helped the Republican party. He actually had an interview with General Motors honcho Roger Smith for Roger & Me and left it out of the movie. He got rich. He got famous. He didn't make his bed this morning.

And so on.

What we liked best about Manufacturing Dissent was how the documentary accuses Moore of some of the same manipulations it then employs -- particularly some high dudgeon malarkey about getting turfed out of a Michael Moore event for bringing in a camera. Oh, never mind.

Manufacturing Dissent seems disingenuous at times and just plain stupid at others. It's either an amateurish mess or else it's a comedy, and the dissent in question is that being manufactured by Caine and Melnyk for Michael Moore's amusement. Either way, blech.

(This film is rated G)
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