Product Details

• Actors: Elaine Bly, Dan Burns, Chip Carter, Jim Czarnecki, Robert Dornan
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Walt Disney Video
• VHS Release Date: September 7, 1999
• Run Time: 91 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (63 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6305087415
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #16,669 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

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  #14 in	Video > Comedy > Documentaries, Real & Fake
  #14 in	Video > Documentary > Comedy

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

A brazen mixture of stand-up comedy, political commentary, CEO confrontations, and shenanigans with Random House tour escorts, Michael Moore's second foray into dark docucomedy after Roger and Me follows his Midwest book tour to promote Downsize This. One of his Milwaukee tour escorts explains that medium-sized cities in the Midwest tend not to attract tours by the self-important celebrities of the Coasts; instead, they attract "more thoughtful authors like Michael." His kind of thoughtfulness evokes both laughter at, and disgust with, corporate America. To be sure, there is a certain naiveté in Moore's proworker take on corporate and political America--his half-serious plan for a Nike shoe factory in Flint, Michigan, makes as much business sense as coal mining on Maui--but he gives voice to well-reasoned arguments that have most easily gotten lost amid the Clinton-era boom's corporate downsizing and reliance on "temporary" employees.

In cities like Des Moines, Minneapolis, St. Louis, and Portland, The Big One juxtaposes both Moore's lighthearted-sounding but deeply biting humor speaking before bookstore patrons and painful-to-watch confrontations with security personnel at companies such as Procter & Gamble and PayDay. (For future targets of Moore's style of journalism, take note of Nike CEO Phil Knight's fairly effective approach as Moore calls him to task on Nike's Indonesian labor.) Moore speaks clandestinely with Borders employees organizing a union; a woman laid off from Ford attends Moore's Rockford, Illinois, bookstore visit the same day. Though slow in spots, frustrating if not depressing in others, it's intensely funny the rest of the time. The Big One is fundamental viewing. --Erik Macki

Product Description

Outrageously entertaining and widely acclaimed, THE BIG ONE marks the return of America's favorite corporate avenger, the hilarious Michael Moore (ROGER & ME, TV NATION). Armed only with a camera and a sharp sense of humor, Moore is back in the nation's heartland and searching for an executive -- any executive -- who will respond to one tough question: If Fortune 500 companies are posting record-setting profits, why do they continue laying off thousands of workers? Looking out for the little guy with plenty of laughs along the way, Moore's howlingly funny crusade has resulted in a crowd-pleasing motion picture that's big entertainment fun!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Response to 3/8/99 review calling The Big One "a disaster", May 25, 1999

By A Customer

America needs more movies like the Big One. We've have been lulled into complacency by corporate, political, and media propaganda. This isn't conspiracy, it's reality! Michael Moore simply and effectively demonstrates the numerous ways in which workers are screwed daily by the interests of corporate capital. One must remember that to effect a game, one must be a part of it - Michael Moore does work within the system, but he at least attempts to do good for the majority of working people. As far as the interviewees being more "clever" and "genuine" than Michael Moore - asking him to leave and refusing to answer questions (with the exception of Nike's CEO) is not appealing or genuine. If politcal cliches and avoidance is clever and appealing to you, then I imagine the status quo, oppresion, and greed are too. This film charmingly and humorously addresses the question of how far the majority of citizens will let the corporate community go. What is enough profit, and at what expense? These are important questions people need to consider. Vote, become politically active, educate yourself! Don't just fall in line. Question why things are done, for whom, and why. These are the realms this movie enters into and tries to expose for thought and debate. To simply label this conspiratorial or Marxian is a classic right-wing counterpunch based on half-truths, ignorance, and propaganda. Social obligation is at the heart of the message, and it is what is missing most in today's politics and policies.

31 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Hit Home....from Former Enron employee, January 10, 2003

By A Customer

Boy this hit home hard. I was a former Enron Broadband Services employee.

I really liked the movie, it was approachable, and friendly. I didn't think even the Phil Knight meeting was all that bad. It was rumored to be soo awful, but here it was pretty friendly and sweet (cuz I was expecting bloodshed & chairs flying)---both guys came out looking pretty nice & sweet.

I still wouldn't buy Nikes, because I worked there on a short contract, and if you aren't a model-type, you get stared at like a skunk and people refuse to talk to you---and they don't even know you. Got an interesting mass of murderous Stepford Wives or cheerleaders working there. And isn't anybody getting sick of those PERKY, gungho marketing sociopaths yet???

Moore is pushing that more folks should get involved in standing up for their rights. He leads by example, and makes it approachable for everyday people who aren't into bloody confrontations.

I do think businesses should be able to make a buck, & lord knows I paid way toooo much taxes---only later, found it extremely difficult to get assistance for anything (Unemployment Dept. penalizes you for taking temp jobs).....but I don't think that entitles businesses to treat people like slaves, parts, etc. Or, enjoy the benefits of being an American company, yet none of the responsibilites ie. sending all the jobs overseas, not paying their share of taxes. Are we already a 3-world-nation and don't even know it yet? What happens when the only jobs available are minimum wage?

At Enron, we were told over & over that we WERE the company, WERE the most vital asset, told to buy/hang onto stock, told to donate to the Bush campaign, watched Ken Lay primp himself to be on Bush's staff-----only to find we'd been conned like some old lady getting schmoozed by a grifter. Lots of people with stock got trick laid-off, go in for a meeting, fly accross the continent, only to find you've been invited to your own funeral & get walked out that minute. This layoff method was presented as some sort of Harvard Business school standard.

All this, because Enron pitted peers (everybody) against each other, and rewarded territory grabbers with more stock. Qualifications and work performance meant nothing, there was no ways of tracking work performed. You could be absolutely lazy, have no qualifications but destroy your peers by schmoozing the bosses, gross slander and looking like you were busy & POSH. Then you get more stock, & sell it!! before the company collapses. (Again, is anybody sick of the PERKY marketing sociopaths yet?? If I ever see another "thumbs-up" gesture again, I'll puke.)

This model too was presented as standard business school practice, so I'm sure it's spread over America. Intel pits peers against each other, but doesn't reward top backstabbers quite so heavily.

Anyway, Michael has brought out some stuff that I haven't heard too often, and I've since been listening to his talks on NPR. The only other person I'd ever heard care as much has burned out & dropped out.

I'd love for him to do an investigation of Enron and their "business school" practices, which I'm sure was a diversion--getting the rats in the cage to fight while top brass robbed the bank. Forget about the "Crooked E" movie, that was a Candyland version of the real filth...

I wonder if there's any Step-by-Step how-to's on how to deal with: peer reviews & peer competition to stay out of the bottom percentile (doomed to layoff, "burn & churn"), unlimited unpaid overtime, unreasonable management expectations, nasty tricks by HR with incentives to snag back stock options, Management saving a buck by hiring underskilled workers who're a burden on the rest, no tracking on work performance or skills, and other white collar slavery issues...

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars This Time Moore Is Less, February 15, 1999

By A Customer

While frequently funny and quite insightful, Michael Moore's follow-up to "Roger and Me" (1989) isn't quite up to the level of its predecessor. His take on corporate America's ruthless tendency to slash U.S. jobs in favor of low-cost labor overseas and his considerable sympathy for American workers is highly commendable - even laudatory in the age of "Armageddon". But, too often, Moore makes himself the subject of the docmentary and the film constantly pushes us to see him as the champion of the underdog. His confrontations with security personnel and junior hirelings at various corporate headquarters is becoming an old schtick by now - he acts perplexed every time he's ejected from some sleek office building although he knows darn well that he's not going anywhere: these scenes are inserted simply for a cheap shot at the impersonality of the conglomerates.

For all that, though, Moore has developed an appealingly rambanctious style of cienmatic populist muckracking using pranks, jokes, and anything else to "pull the p..s" out of his adversaries. He's effective when interviewing the very people squeezed out by the vicious "downsizing" of the 1980's and 1990's and his frank talk with Nike CEO, Phil Knight, eerily shows that even corporate ruthlessness can be embodied in an affable human personality. And he gets a lot of mileage with his stand-up routine against on-the-take politicans and self-justifying white-collar bosses. But he misses as many opportunities as he grabs - spending more screen time strumming with the guitarist from Cheap Trick than talking with Studs Terkel, who could have added a valuable historical perspective to the contemporary situation, and spending time playing shenanigans on his press agents when we'd really like to learn more about the working people whose cause he's defending. ("Roger and Me", which followed the lives of several people thrown out of work, provided a stronger human foundation for Moore to lob off his zingers). "The Big One" is like "Roger and Me"-lite. Moore give us more of his trademark stunts and humor and compassion but doesn't add anything that we haven't seen before. Moore's heart is in the right place and, based on the evidence presented here, he looks to be on the verge of becoming the first populist folk hero in some time. "The Big One", however, shows up the danger of taking your self-appointed role too seriously. The title may stand for America but I'm inclined to think Moore sees it as a self-tribute.