Waiting for “Superman” is a tour de force, hooking you from the second it starts, and hanging on long after the credits roll. The latest opus from director Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth) tackles the failure of public education in America, taking on questions of funding, leadership and our fundamental beliefs about education.

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It helps that Guggenheim is a master filmmaker, milking every emotional sucker-punch and each zinger of a sound bite for all they’re worth. In this polished, briskly paced documentary, everyone from schoolchildren to superintendents, frustrated parents to policy wonks, have a say. Guggenheim begins with an admission of guilt for sending his own children to private school -- a lament that’s likely a common one for parents of a certain class and world view -- and a decision that betrayed his ideals. What follows is an earnest examination of a system gone terribly wrong, but with a clear point of view: If we have so miserably reneged on the promise of public education, what does that say about us, as a society? And what can we do to turn the ship around?

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But “Superman” isn’t all gloom and doom. Along with our cast of world-weary kids, there are also handy primers on the complexities of our public education system, laid out in entertaining, animated sequences that boil down the facts and establish context. In Guggenheim’s view of this history of major politicking and meager accountability, no single person or governing body is to blame. Presidents from both parties, union leaders, crappy teachers and bureaucrats all get hung out to dry. The profound problems presented in the film seem that much scarier because no one is exempt -- and America’s future is hanging in the balance (just in case you doubt it: Bill Gates appears to say that we’re officially screwed).