It helps that I sympathize with much of his argument, though even I recognize that some of what he tries to pass off as research - for instance, the sequence where he surmises that Canadians, unlike their terrified national neighbors to the south, don't lock their doors just by trying a handful of them - is weak. But Moore is less a journalist than an essayist, and if he tends to grandstand, it's the instinct of a born filmmaker. When Bowling For Columbine hits its stride, which is to say, during the bulk of its running time, it's funny, incisive and fairly devastating. (I can see why the Europeans love it so much - it must seem like a very revealing look at the American psyche.) Interviews with a range of cultural figures - a former producer of Cops, which Moore argues helps build the culture of fear; Terry Nichols' brother Mike; South Park co-impresario Matt Stone; and youth counterculture rep Marilyn Manson. (Dick Clark turns him down.) A flurry of video clips, found footage, and even a cartoon illustrate Moore's narration, which describes the thought processes that lead to his conclusions. It's a big advance on every level from The Big One, which seemed mainly to signal Moore's increasing self-satisfaction and irrelevance.

But when Moore missteps, the film turns smarmy and embarrassing. Bowling For Columbine is never worse than when Moore performs specifically for the camera, making the audience watch as he consoles the weeping principal of a high school where a first grader shot another one to death, or self-consciously depositing the child's picture at the doorstep of NRA President Charlton Heston. (It's also debatable whether Moore's interview with a near-doddering Heston, in which the self-satisfied old fella seems to slip and blame American racial minorities for high rates of gun violence, adds anything but celebrity spectacle to his argument.) Still, the links Moore draws between aggression on individual and national levels could hardly be more timely, and the outrage he demonstrates is contagious. At least as long as Moore resists the temptation to showcase himself on screen, this feels like essential viewing.