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Team America: World Police
South Park's creators return with a send-up of the "War on Terror" using a cast of puppets
Team America: World Police sets its sights on the "War On Terror" with a group of Thunderbirds Are Go-style marionettes emerging from their secret headquarters inside a hollowed-out Mount Rushmore to battle terrorism around the globe. Only the twisted geniuses behind 'South Park' could come up with a project so shamelessly designed to cause offense. Team America: World Police is the latest outing for Trey Parker and Matt Stone, whose reputation as equal-opportunities offenders precedes them by many miles. Even so, they've never been quite as shocking as they are here. Faced with Arab extremists being armed with WMD by North Korea's Kim Jong Il (imagine Cartman crossed with Ronnie Corbett and a James Bond villain), Team America recruit Broadway actor Gary Johnston (voiced by Parker) to help them infiltrate a terrorist cell. Meanwhile, back home, liberal Hollywood types led by Michael Moore, Alec Baldwin and Tim Robbins are campaigning against Team America's international meddling while naively joining forces with the scheming North Korean dictator. Taking its visual cues from small screen marionette adventures like 'Captain Scarlet', 'Thunderbirds' and 'Terrahawks', Parker and Stone's film manages to blow the world up for much the same price as Pearl Harbor director Michael Bay blowing his nose. Within the first 10 minutes the Eiffel Tower, Arc De Triomphe and the Louvre are demolished. Later scenes feature such mind-bogglingly fiendish events as Hans Blix (Parker again) being fed to sharks by Kim Il Jong ("Inspect that you cockflucker!"), Michael Moore turning himself into a suicide bomber, and a graphic marionette sex romp (though this was trimmed for American release). All of this deliberately offensive material is likely to come as no surprise to anyone who's ever watched 'South Park'. However, what is a surprise is just how politically one-sided so much of it is. Ruthlessly satirising Hollywood's liberal clique of anti-war protesters (they're branded the Film Actors Guild - or FAG - just one of many homophobic jibes), Team America presents Michael Moore and co as pompous fools ready to sell America out to terrorists. It all builds towards a rousing speech that's a (barely) veiled metaphor for the fight against international terrorism. "We're reckless, arrogant, stupid dicks," explains Gary. "And the Film Actors Guild are pussies. And Kim Jong-Il is an asshole." The upshot is that dicks (Team America) have to fuck both assholes (the terrorists) and pussies (the liberals) in order to keep the world a safer place. It'd be a relief to be able to dismiss such facile political posturing as a bad joke, but the sad fact is that Parker and Stone have never been so one-sided. With no mention of Bush, Guantanamo Bay or the neoconservatives, it's clear that this pusillanimous puppet tale doesn't have the gall to attack the real life puppet masters who pull the strings. Verdict Offensive, funny and foul-mouthed, this manic marionette comedy has its finger on the pulse, its mind in the gutter and its politics firmly in the White House. |
