Bowling for Columbine

Bowling for Columbine is an alternately humourous and horrifying film about the United States. It is a film about the violent soul of America. Why do 11,000 people die in America each year in the wake of gun violence?

The talking heads yelling from every TV camera blame everything from Satan to video games. But is the U.S. that much different from many other countries? What sets them apart? How have they become both the master and victim of such enormous amounts of violence?

It is not a film about gun control. It is a film about the fearful heart and soul of the United States, and 280 million Americans with the constitutionally protected right to own an Uzi.

Bowling for Columbine was the first documentary film accepted into competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 46 years. The Cannes jury unanimously awarded it the 55th Anniversary Prize.

From footage of the Columbine High School massacre to the home of National Rifle Association President Charlton Heston, from a young man who makes homemade napalm with The Anarchist's Cookbook to the murder of a six-year-old girl by another six-year-old, "Bowling for Columbine" is a journey through America, and through their past, hoping to discover why their pursuit of happiness is so riddled with violence.

What the critics are saying:

"This is a bold, blackly comic masterpiece - everyone should see it."
- Nev Pierce, BBCi

"This film is bitingly brilliant - as only Michael Moore can be. No one on either side of the gun control issue should miss this movie."
- Leigh Johnson, Hollywood.com

"For the most part, it's a work of incendiary genius, steering clear of knee-jerk reactions and quick solutions."
- Tor Thorsen, Reel.com