Team America: World Police (2004)

Team America: World Police (2004)

November 21, 2004

Somerville Theater, Somerville, MA

*** / ****

By Scott Muoio

My favorite print ad for South Park Creator Trey Parker’s Team America: World Police reads, “The Most Offensive Movie of the Year.” Endorsements like that don’t come easy, so for my buck oh five, there was no question: I had to see this movie as soon as possible. I did and Oh, what a laugh I had!

Team America, otherwise known as “the puppet movie of 2004,” is a jab at every extreme of life post 9/11. From the namby-pamby liberals to the fake-tough conservatives no one is safe from Parker’s cavalcade of real and fictional puppets and their obscenity laced diatribes. Heck, even the number itself, 9/11, a sacred cow for the past three years comes under fire. With real life exploitation of the events of September 11, 2001 at an all-time high, I must confess: Team America couldn’t have come at a better time.

The plot in the movie revolves around “Team America,” a group of freedom fighters that travels the world blowing up everything in sight in the name of democracy and ridding the world of “terrorists.” Along the way, the team faces off against Kim Jong Il, the bouffant wearing North Korean dictator, Alec Baldwin, the outspoken actor/activist and his planet saving cohorts of the Film Actors Guild (get it?), a bunch of unnamed Arabs (which is pretty much how America views them anyway, save one or two especially nasty ones), and a livid, hot dog chomping Michael Moore. The art here, beyond the witty call outs of self-important actors, flag waving patriots, and delusional dictators and madmen, is that all the characters are puppets and most of the sets are miniature cities mocked up to look like the real thing (New York City, Paris, Cairo, etc). Combine the two and Team America is a wonder to behold with nearly every puppet on screen eventually meeting its inevitable death both verbally and literally before the closing credits. Oh, hell yeah!

The success of Team America comes by way of the extraordinary puppeteering, the plethora of topical and very funny finger pointing jokes, and in how the film takes advantage of the limitations and silliness of working with puppets in realistic situations (showing the strings, putting the puppets in contrast to real size locations, and playing off real human emotions). With his script, Parker is incredibly sharp with his witticisms even if he barely goes beyond the most obvious targets. The extreme liberals and extreme conservatives bear the brunt of the jokes, which find their best cuts during some of the musical numbers. “America, Fuck Yeah,” is a red hot salute to kickin’ ass and takin’ names America style (The United States of America, that is, the real America). “Freedom Isn’t Free” is a cowboy’s lament that wouldn’t be remotely out of place blaring from a pick-up truck with one of those “These Colors Don’t Run” bumper stickers even if it is condescending to the person who might be playing it. Most impressive is the Kim Jong Il number, “I’m So Ronery,” a surprisingly sentimental piece that actually goes farther into the tyrant’s psyche than has any Peter Jennings’ special news report. Throw in the fact that almost every joke is based on some sort of stereotype and you’ve got a film that will surely have activist groups of all colors and creeds up in arms, almost assuredly partially the point in Parker’s grand plan. But then again, if having Parker as a common enemy can bring any understanding between the worlds’ numerous factions, then maybe the film is even more successful than one could ever imagine.

Perhaps the most surprising element in Team America’s success is how real the puppets in this movie seemed to be. While much of the action is surely aimed at shocking the audience, it was amazing how I actually felt quite connected to reluctant hero Gary (voiced by Parker). In one scene, Gary quits Team America and goes on a drinking binge. Gary hits rock bottom at one particularly seedy joint and eventually gets booted from the place. What follows is a purging of the likes I have never seen before, both literally and figuratively, and which somehow seemed to contain a symbolism that melded music, emotion, and context that had more meaning to me than 99% of what I see in the cinema or on DVD. Call me crazy, but that one scene alone spoke to me like few other cinematic experiences ever have.

On the other hand, Team America is far from perfect and features numerous shortcomings that are both plentiful and obvious. The plot is pretty flimsy (even if it is just a satire of big budget Hollywood blockbusters), the jokes do get old after a while, much is made fun of but little is offered in the way of any solutions to the griping (ironically, very much like Michael Moore’s books and movies), and the camerawork is sometimes quite distracting, especially with the abundance of hold shots that blur in and out of characters in the same frame (probably due to the limiting nature of working with puppets on miniature sets). But even with these faults, Team America is funny because a lot of what it says is very true. At the end of the day the movie has something to offend just about everyone and there is much to be said about a movie that antagonistic. Lucky for us, Parker saves his best for last, a scene that culminates in a hesitant member of Team America delivering a speech to the leaders of the world that separates the world’s population into three categories that seem as perfect as anything I may have ever heard: dicks, pussies, and assholes. The word “fuck” turns out to be the key to the whole analogy, but alas, I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.