The sad fact of Hollywood is that comedy, while a large draw at the box office, is also the one genre that, to quote the late great Rodney Dangerfield, gets no respect. While the Oscars teem with nominations for big budget dramas, comedians of all sorts are snubbed because their performances or comedic achievements are not as “substantial” as dramatic roles.
Comedy, however, is by far the most difficult style to pull off in film. Anyone can cry, but practically nobody can make something as ridiculous as marionettes perform the greatest comedic routines performed on screen this year. “Team America: World Police,” the newest film from demented geniuses and creators of “South Park” Trey Parker and Matt Stone, does exactly this feat.
“Team America: World Police” is the most brilliant political satire to arise out of this election year, and it does so without mentioning any presidential candidates. The film follows the misadventures of Team America, an elite band of soldiers whose sole purpose is to stamp out terrorism around the world.
After a premier member dies during a mission in Paris, a young Broadway star Gary, voiced by director Parker, is recruited to use his acting abilities to infiltrate various terrorist groups in order to discern future terrorist attacks. Going from Cairo to Panama to North Korea, the team takes on terror at every corner of the globe, defeating the bad guys but causing more destruction than any weapon of mass destruction ever could.
The ultimate villain is Kim Jong Il, the North Korean despot, also voiced by Parker, who is intent on reducing the world to utter chaos. Allied with him is the Film Actors Guild, comprised of Hollywood actors working against Team America as they fight
these terrorists. Global politics is the most obvious target of Parker and Stone’s satire, as Team America, in its quest for stability, ignorantly causes more havoc than intended.
But the most biting satire is aimed towards Hollywood itself. The entire film is a spoof on Hollywood big action blockbusters, using every formulaic battle scene or melodramatic dialogue possible from “Terminator 2” to “Pearl Harbor.” Explosions rack the screen, bullets fly and bodies pile up like any Jerry Bruckheimer production.
But this destruction comes from a world of puppets, not juiced up actors. Everything Samuel L. Jackson or Sean Penn, both featured in the film, could do, these puppets can do, except with strings attached to their arms.
The film is definitely not a family-friendly blockbuster, though. Expletives abound, although not nearly as much as in the “South Park” film, and there are scenes of intense puppet sex. While the filmmakers barely got away with an R rating, the material is definitely not suited for children under 17, or for anyone else.
Just about any person will be offended by something in this film, yet that’s what makes it great. Its purpose is to offend as many people as possible, but also to allow for a very funny viewing experience.
Some might get angry – especially Hollywood – but deep down the film has more admirable values than anything Hollywood has produced in years without resorting to sentimental slop.
This is a film for America -deceptively patriotic in its ideals, with more feeling and skill than any drama yet done in a way that does not devolve into uninformed pretension. And it’s delivered by puppets in a comedy. Hollywood might ignore this film in February -although it definitely deserves Oscars for Best Set Design and Special Effects – but it doesn’t really matter, because Hollywood is filled with the worst types of terrorists in the world: actors.
Jason Bolte can be reached at [email protected].
Gary (Trey Parker) and Lisa (Kristin Miller) fight to protect the word from “tourists” in Trey Parker and Matt Stone´s “Team America (Photo Courtesy of Paramount)
