If I were a capitalist, I wouldn’t be unduly concerned about Michael Moore’s new piece of investigative journalism – ‘Capitalism – A Love Story’.

Moore is such a populist that he cannot resist lumping serious points with jokey sequences –  a practice that seriously undermines the thrust of his arguments here.

An interview with George Bush which has him speaking against an animated backdrop is completely unnecessary – we don’t these cheap visual aids to tell us that he’s talking bollocks.

Moore’s publicity stunts are particularly lame in this movie. He stands outside an office in Wall Street asking financial staff to explain the meaning of the word ‘derivatives’ – are we supposed to conclude that there’s a massive cover up simply because no-one stops to answer him ?

At the end of the movie he stretches ‘Crime Scene Do Not Cross’ tape around a city bank which only succeeds in drawing bemused looks from security staff and the general public. A few bricks through the window would have been more effective.

Moore’s exposure of the immoral ‘Dead Peasants’ life insurance policies is the biggest eyeopener of the film – showing how companies routinely wager on employees’ lives, expecting to make money when they die. This and the section on low paid airline pilots show the rottenness at the heart of the system but , overall, Moore’s points are too random to hit home with any real force.

On top of this he bottles out of advocating Socialism as an alternative. The ‘S’ word has been so demonised in America that all he offers is: “Capitalism is an evil and you cannot regulate evil – it must be replaced with democracy” which makes no sense to me given that democracy is a system whereby everyone gets to vote and NOT  a set of political principles.

Moore is to be congratulated for taking on the capitalist machine but this film is doing little more than preaching to the converted when it should be directed at changing hearts and minds.