Bowling for Columbine

San Francisco Chronicle Jonathan Curiel

Documentary reaches an exalted level of filmmaking. It explains the very fabric of American society.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Moore's best movie, and one of the most blisteringly effective polemics and documentaries ever.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

This volcanically funny and seriously scary look at America's obsession with guns is meant to shake us up good. And it does.

Variety Lisa Nesselson

The sparks fly thanks to Moore's patented blend of curveball research, expedient juxtaposition, genuine satire and bottomless chutzpah.

Time Richard Corliss

Rambunctious, disturbing, often hilarious new documentary.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Both hilarious and sorrowful.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Moore's roving essay feels even more urgent now than it did when the jury had to make up an award to honor it at the Cannes film festival in May.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Imperfect as it may be, Bowling for Columbine is riveting stuff.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

That broad range of subject matter is indicative of the messy, meandering structure of the movie. But if Moore fails to tie this unwieldy movie into a lucid thesis, at least every tangent he chases down has its own payoff.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Impressively reframes the gun-control debate in terms that advocates of both sides might find fruitful, but Moore doesn't do anything to shed his reputation as a snot.

The New Yorker David Denby

When he follows his nose -- say, by tracing his own connections to Eric Harris, one of the Columbine shooters -- he implicates himself in what he hates and fears, and he emerges as a wounded patriot searching for a small measure of clarity. [28 October 2002, p. 119]

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Often uproariously funny, even though much of its queasy power comes from its acknowledgment that some matters are too horrifying to be washed away with cheap laughter, or packaged into soundbites.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Irreverent, provocative and provoking.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Moore turns the camera on himself too often for comfort, but he provides an eye-opening array of facts and revelations.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Even Moore's target ticket-buyers are likely to squirm with concern, unsure of who the real weasels and idiots are in this large, unkempt, rambunctious country of ours.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Moore brilliantly unmasks the inanity of the arguments used in the debate over gun control in America. He then undermines himself by leaping into the blame game without supporting his central thesis, that the media is what makes teens like the ones at Columbine turn around and shoot up their schools.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Moore continues another one infinitely more valuable -- the proud line that extends right back to Mark Twain, embracing all those satirists so enamoured with America at its best that they won't stand silent for America at its worst.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

At its best, the movie powerfully indicts our violent history. A montage of bloody U.S. interventions in foreign affairs over the last half-century, most overthrowing elected governments we didn't like, left me shaken.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Moore's concern about issues is genuine, and his showboating technique is often entertaining. But he is not the most organized person in the world, and there is a scattershot randomness about this film that is both its essence and a source of frustration.

Film Threat Mark A. Altman

It’s a welcome addition to the national debate, which while not always on the money, is consistently thoughtful, smart and thoroughly satisfying.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Disturbing, infuriating and often very funny film.

TV Guide Ken Fox

It does get K-Mart to pull handgun and assault ammunition from their shelves after two Columbine survivors show up at corporate headquarters with Moore's camera crew in tow and bullets bought for 13 cents apiece at a K-Mart store still embedded in their bodies.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Moore's best film to date is this comic and grimly entertaining reflection on America's gun craziness and why we kill one another.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

Fun and informative, thoughtful and thought-provoking.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Moore provides a rather rambling discourse of causality, which includes racism, white flight and Africanized bees.

Slate David Edelstein

Something appalling about the way he turns to the camera with a look of sorrow: Michael Moore as a suffering Christ. It's an insult to his own movie, which at its considerable best transcends his thuggish personality.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

The only thing wrong with Bowling for Columbine is Moore himself.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It's vintage Moore: on one level the courageous act of a gutsy journalist, and, on another, a callously unfair and self-serving spectacle that makes Moore seem like a big bully, and puts his audience into the position of a vigilante mob.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Shallow and one-sided.

Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson

Where Bowling for Columbine is at its most valuable is in its examination of America's culture of fear as a root cause of gun violence.

LA Weekly John Powers

It seems to have been made to delight European intellectuals and anyone else who believes that America is a land of bloodthirsty yet comical barbarians.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

It's poorly structured, a half-hour too long, and devotedly fixated on the filmmaker's persona.