SickoMovie Reviews

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Avg. Critic Score: 74 out of 100 Generally favorable reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
13 Iffy for 13+
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 100
    San Francisco Chronicle | Mick LaSalle

    Sicko will scare people, and it probably should. Read full review

  • 90
    Los Angeles Times | Kenneth Turan

    Sicko is likely Moore's most important, most impressive, most provocative film, and it's different from his others in significant ways. Read full review

  • 90
    The Hollywood Reporter | Kirk Honeycutt

    Michael Moore intelligently, comically and incisively diagnoses and calls for the treatment of a sick U.S. health care system. Read full review

  • 88
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    I have only one complaint, and it is this: Every American should be as fortunate as I have been. As Moore makes clear in his film, some 50 million Americans have no insurance and no way to get it. Read full review

  • 88
    Rolling Stone | Peter Travers

    In a summer of dumb, shameless drivel, Moore delivers a movie of robust mind and heart. You'll laugh till it hurts. Read full review

  • 88
    USA Today | Claudia Puig

    Highly entertaining and informative. Read full review

  • 83
    Entertainment Weekly | Lisa Schwarzbaum

    The Cuban escapade, designed to provoke, backfires when he loses focus by including Cuban firefighters in an homage to 9/11 first responders. Read full review

  • 70
    The New York Times | A.O. Scott

    Sicko is the least controversial and most broadly appealing of Mr. Moore's movies. (It is also, perhaps improbably, the funniest and the most tightly edited.) The argument it inspires will mainly be about the nature of the cure, and it is here that Mr. Moore's contribution will be most provocative and also, therefore, most useful. Read full review

  • 70
    Variety |

    An affecting and entertaining dissection of the American health care industry, showing how it benefits the few at the expense of the many. Read full review

  • 50
    Washington Post | Stephen Hunter

    Ladies and gentlemen, I think we can agree on two things: The American health-care system is busted and Michael Moore is not the guy to fix it. His Sicko, an investigation and indictment of a system choking on paperwork, greed, bad policy and countervailing goals, turns out to be a fuzzy, toothless collection of anecdotes, a few stunts and a bromide-rich conclusion. Read full review

View more reviews for Sicko on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says Iffy for 13+ Michael Moore takes on the healthcare system.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that this pointed documentary isn't meant for younger children -- not that they're likely to be interested in subject material like medical insurance companies, drug company lobbying, and government legislation regarding medical treatment anyway. That said, Moore makes the sometimes-difficult material understandable and frequently entertaining. Expect some very sad stories of things and people lost -- loved ones, property, and even hope -- as well as brief, potentially upsetting images (bloody injuries, a mentally troubled patient being turned out onto the street, etc). Language includes one pointed use of "bitch," by a tearful woman remembering her work as an insurance agent, and a written "f--k you" glimpsed on a Web site.
  • Families can talk about Michael Moore's filmmaking style. He makes documentaries, but they're not always purely objective -- he sometimes presents information in a way that better makes his point. Is that OK? How does that affect the way you view his films? Do you have to agree with his views to enjoy his movies? How does he make viewers feel included in his journey in this movie? Does that make the topic more accessible, in spite of the complicated issues?
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: The film casts the healthcare industry and the U.S. government in a negative light, using potentially upsetting scenes -- children crying as their father leaves for Iraq, a woman discussing her husband's death, a patient being cast into the street by a hospital worker, etc. -- to make its point.
What to watch for
  • violence false0 Violence: Some brief grisly medical imagery (for example, a knee being stitched in the opening scenes); photo of severed finger; references to Iraq war and images of detainees at Guantanamo Bay (they play soccer, but they are in prison).
  • sex false0 Sex: Jokey use of President Bush's famous malapropism ("Too many OB-GYNs are not able to practice their love with women all over this country").
  • language false3 Language: A brief shot of an anti-Michael Moore Web site shows the written phrase "f--k you." In terms of what's said out loud, it's mostly pretty mild, including "suck," "bitch," and "ass."
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: Medical insurance and drug companies are named (Aetna, Pharma, etc.).
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false0 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Medications are dispensed and discussed.
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

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Dave White

5.0

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… the most important American film of 2007. Read full review See Dave White's on MOVIENAME on Movies.com

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