As a humorist, activist Michael Moore is genuinely talented. But “Bowling for Columbine,” an anti-gun harangue liberal audiences are relishing, also serves to remind us of his shortcomings as a documentary filmmaker.

As with his breakthrough “Roger & Me,” Moore demonstrates a tremendous knack for parody with “Columbine,” mocking American gun nuts as hilariously as he did General Motors executives in the earlier picture. When indulging his penchant for dogmatic social commentary, however, he’s dishonest and self-aggrandizing beyond redemption.

Narratively, the film is pretty scattered: Moore takes us inside the hideouts of the Michigan militias; to the comparatively murder-free cities of Canada; and to Littleton, Colo., where he recruits two gunshot victims to heckle the corporate headquarters of Kmart, the company that sold the Columbine shooters their ammunition.

The director’s travels are anecdotally interesting, but far from enlightening – he nibbles at the edges of the firearm issue but fails to locate its center. His most fleshed-out observation – that fear-inducing news coverage may be responsible for America’s lock-and-load temperament – is drowned out by several incomprehensible tangents, such as a pointless montage recalling American military “atrocities” since World War II. (According to Moore, U.S. campaigns in Korea and Bosnia were tantamount to genocide.)

If coherence is a problem in “Columbine,” it isn’t fatal. As comic pranksters from the Marx Brothers to Woody Allen have proven, an organized, logical approach to movie making isn’t essential for comedy, and Moore does a good job at getting laughs.

Comic set pieces that stand out include a “South Park”-style animated segment that conspiratorially ties the fortunes of the Ku Klux Klan and National Rifle Association; as well as a segment in which Moore highlights the media’s fear-mongering tendencies – and latent racism – by compiling news clips warning television viewers of an imminent invasion from “Africanized” killer bees. (According to the reporter, they’re “more aggressive than their gentler, European counterparts.”)

“Columbine” runs out of steam, however, when it gets serious – when Moore tries to indict the culture, rather than merely skewering it. The problem, as always, lies with his methods – he makes sweeping claims as to the cause of gun violence, often without a shred of meaningful proof.

In the segment where Moore contrasts Canadian social attitudes with those of our own, he comes to the conclusion that our northern neighbors have been made civil by responsible media and socialist politics. How does Moore prove this assertion? Why, he ambles up to a few suburban porches, finds a few unlocked doors and declares the nation officially safe from hate and fear.

Later, he spends fifteen minutes vainly trying to tie an infamous school shooting in his home of Flint, Mich., to everything from the poor condition of the local football field to the welfare-to-work program in which the young killer’s mother was forced to partake. In the film’s most unforgivably mawkish moment, Moore solemnly lays a photograph of the victim at the entrance of Charlton Heston’s home after the actor-turned NRA president walks out on an interview with him.

Why does it matter if Moore cuts corners and plays fast and loose with the truth? In one sense, it doesn’t. All his fudging and pandering isn’t going to lose him any cache with his core audience, which cheers both the mockery and the fraud in equal measure.

On the other hand, isn’t Moore trying to affect change? To win the broader debate? If that truly is the case, he’s got to do what real journalists do – provide better evidence for his claims and consider the opinions of others without derision. There’s a place in this world for flip sarcasm and shallow demagoguery. But no one confuses “The Daily Show” with “Nightline,” and after watching “Bowling for Columbine,” no one will confuse Michael Moore with a serious thinker.

Jordan Gentile is a senior in journalism. He can be reached at [email protected].