Already almost two months old and nearing the end of its big-screen stint, Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story calls attention to an ongoing epidemic: the delusion of American government about unrestrained free enterprise. As expected, Moore’s portrait is maddening. He attacks the sources of excess that brought about the recent financial crisis, and illuminates the infuriating repercussions, situating both cause and effect within a broad argument for an increased government presence in the economy. This subject, however, is far too nuanced for the overly emotional story to effectively address. Hating on capitalism has been a popular past time for two centuries, in both academic and non-academic circles. Although Michael Moore skillfully portrays the unjust consequences of the latest economic bust, one is inclined to dismiss his biased platitudes.

Moore nevertheless deserves recognition for his undertaking. A rare social critic in filmmaking, he champions the working Americans hardest hit by the sub-prime mortgage crisis, capturing personal accounts in a way that mainstream media does not. Moore interviews several people who were forced out of the homes that they had owned for years, often through several generations. Although most accounts were depressing, some were inspirational. A factory in Chicago that was shut down last year after Bank of America cut off its credit line put hundreds of people out of work and destroyed their community. The workers refused to accept this, and continued to come to work, an act that raised the attention of the national media and the president, earning each of them a severance package along with compensation pay for vacation.

Using his hometown of Flint, Mich., as an example, now but a shadow of what he grew up with, Moore emphasizes the effects of foreclosures in a community. His father describes years of work at a unionized factory, now a huge vacant lot. The strong unions of Detroit have degenerated since the 1970s, while German and Japanese unions have germinated, a testament to their countries’ achievements in production and quality.

Such examples illustrate the decline of unions and its adverse impact on the working class. According to Moore, the American dream in the present day is a superficial copy of what it was in his father’s day, when workers enjoyed greater stability. Hierarchies within the work place have become less and less equitable. Moore cites an engineering firm in Wisconsin, whose democratically governed employees share profits equally, as an example of an equitable corporate hierarchy. This example was especially candid, given the widening gap between rich and poor in the recession’s aftermath.

Indeed, the recent financial crisis has highlighted the apathy of our economic system towards citizens on the bottom. Like most Americans, however, Michael Moore isn’t able to explain what caused the housing bubble to burst, and neither does his film. His film suggests that it was a mix of deregulation, greed, corruption and inherent systemic flaws: vague evils that Moore vilifies but does not constructively address.

In his typical outlandish fashion, Moore walks around Wall Street asking traders to explain derivatives and credit default swaps. One brave ex-Lehman executive tries, but is not able to convey their meanings in everyday terms. Moore does not pursue this subject, leaving the reasons why they came into use in the first place, as well as their utility in the market unexplained. It is now common knowledge that financial innovation helped pave the way for the recession, but Moore is heavily biased in portraying financial tools as black magic.

Similar types of biases arise as Moore lampoons the government, whose role in bailing out the giant investment banks he portrays as suspect. The former Goldman Sachs executives who populate the high ranks of the Treasury Department lend an element of cronyism that will forever taint the legislation that bailed out Goldman and A.I.G. Moore points the finger at its swift pass through the House, interviewing senators who believed that the bailout was a product of backroom deals and political promises. While this may have been the case, he does not consider that the bailout helped avert a global financial catastrophe, nor does he provide any conclusive evidence of cronyism.

As suggested by the title, Moore’s so-called “love affair” of capitalism occurs between business and government elite who have forgotten the hard working backbone of America during their greedy ascent to dominance. While this argument is worth greater pursuit, the term “capitalism” is too bold for the scope of the film. The only point at which Moore addresses the moral implications of capitalism is during a series of interviews with his local priest and bishop, who unanimously conclude that it is amoral. The brief discussion glossed over entire schools of thought that have formed as a reaction to the capitalist system. Scholars have pondered its moral and practical implications for hundreds of years, and their conspicuous absence shows that capitalism is too broad of a subject to be scrutinized in a single popular documentary.