20 years on, Michael Moore is still facing down the fat cats. Anything new in the cesspool of American corruption? Or rather, asks Kimberly Gadette, is this question purely rhetorical?

Don't shoot the messenger. Praise him. For 20 years, Michael Moore has been sounding the alarm, whether or not people wanted to hear it. A lesser person might have given up by now. But not Moore, who delivers his most explicit messages yet in this latest documentary, the film that that he calls "the culmination" of his work since his 1989 Roger & Me.

Opening with a comical clip that warns us to "leave the auditorium now" if we've got weak hearts, Moore presents a montage of robberies in action. Underscored by the growling Iggy Pop cover of 'Louie, Louie' assorted thugs in masks pillage assorted banks. Which is a lovely irony, given that the rest of the film deals with how those same banks are pillaging us.

Unlike his prior documentaries in which he concentrates on one particular evil (ie, the car industry, gun abuse, the Iraq War and healthcare), Moore consolidates all forms of governmental corruption under the unifying umbrella of capitalism. Not capitalism in its purest form, in which any hard-working person with a sound business plan can supposedly achieve success within the free enterprise system. In this film, Moore suggests that capitalism has become so unscrupulous that rather than needing protection by the government … we need protection from the government: a government that has become the biggest pirate of them all.

Moore organizes his two-hour treatise into digestible bits, offering up a medley of human drama, historical footage, facts, explanations and interviews with legislative big-wigs. He'll take an intimate snapshot, for example, that of the Hackers who'd just lost their family farm to the bank. Desperate for money, they become their own cleaning crew on a property they no longer own. In effect, the bank becomes both evictor and employer.

He then takes a broad, impersonal swipe at the powerful players at the top, sarcastically illustrating how the stock brokerage firm of Goldman Sachs has relocated its offices to the U.S. Treasury Department (pointedly mentioning the prior and current U.S. Secretaries Henry Paulson and Timothy Geithner).

Reflecting the mood of the country, Moore's earlier, wackier stunts such as transporting a boatload of folks to Cuba for better healthcare (Sicko) have been replaced with a far more earnest tone. He interviews his father (a 35-year employee of General Motors), sharing family films and memories of the good old days when one breadwinner per family was enough, when health insurance, weeks of paid vacation and pensions were the norm.

He may show a soft side, but much of the movie still carries the classic Moore punch. We see juveniles forcibly locked away in a private facility for profit, and large corporations taking out insurance policies on young employees ('Dead Peasant insurance') with the hope that they might die sooner than expected, triggering hefty cash payouts to the company's coffers.

Particularly eye-opening is his examination of past U.S. presidents. We glimpse Franklin D. Roosevelt, who'd tried unsuccessfully to pass a second bill of rights for the working man…as if FDR, from his Oval Office in the '40s, could foresee the chicanery of such future presidents as Ronald Reagan and the Bushes in the '80s. Speaking of Reagan, Moore casts the actor/pitchman in a new, unflattering light. As an actor, he'd starred in commercials on behalf of corporate America for years – once he'd taken on the role of President, though the venue had changed, the script stayed essentially the same.

Ultimately, Moore hits us right between the eyes. It's not that the 1% at the top is rich; they're stupendously, insultingly rich, worth more than the bottom 95% combined. It is his belief that our democracy has degenerated into a "Plutonomy" (a word coined by Citigroup, referring to a society where the majority of wealth is controlled by a small but mighty minority).

He never talks down to us; rather, he entreats us to come along on his journey, stating that he can no longer fight the good fight all by himself. This is a new plea, and a sincere one. He argues his case, showing hopeful scenes in which the little guy not only pushes back, but pushes hard enough to win.

It just might be that Americans can no longer sit on their hands in a dark theater letting the lumbering big guy in the baseball cap do all the work for them. Maybe this time, inspired by this film (one of his strongest yet), the audience may be moved to action. Such is the beauty of documentary film.

Rating on a scale of 5 bailouts: 4.5

Release date: US: 2 October, 2009
Written and directed by: Michael Moore
Starring: Michael Moore
Rating: US = R; UK = TBD
Running time: 120 minutes