team america: world police

review by rob gonsalves

director  
Trey Parker

screenwriters
Pam Brady
Trey Parker
Matt Stone

producers
Scott Rudin
Trey Parker
Matt Stone

cinematographer
Bill Pope

music
Harry Gregson-Williams

editor
Tom Vogt

cast

Trey Parker (Gary Johnston/Joe/Hans Blix/Kim Jong Il/Others)
Matt Stone (Chris/Others)
Kristen Miller (Lisa)
Masasa (Sarah)
Daran Norris (Spottswoode)
Phil Hendrie (Intelligence)

mpaa rating: R
running time: 98m
u.s. release: 10/15/04
video availability: VHS - DVD
official website

other trey parker films
reviewed on this website:

- orgazmo
- south park: bigger, longer & uncut

Watching the free-swinging satire Team America: World Police, I was reminded of a bit by the late great comedian Bill Hicks:

I'll show you politics in America, here it is right here: "I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs." "I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking." "Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy in the middle holding up both puppets."

Or, in this case, two guys -- Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the ruthless iconoclasts behind South Park, who have now unleashed Team America upon a politics-weary world. The puppets here, of course, are literal: Thunderbirds-style marionettes manipulated by visible strings. At first, director Parker plays the puppets' jerky movements for laughs, in much the same spirit as when Eric Cartman, in the previous Parker/Stone feature South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, complained about the crudely animated Terrance and Phillip, and the movie cut to the four crudely animated boys waddling away. But it doesn't take long for us to suspend our disbelief, even during the now-legendary lovemaking scene between two Team America members. What are human actors in big-budget action movies but highly-paid puppets anyway, mouthing lines and moving from one over-the-top scene to another?

Team America's biggest target turns out to be not terrorists or even politicians but actors. One actor in particular, up-and-coming Broadway star Gary Johnston (voice by Parker), is recruited by Team America to pose as a terrorist and find out, y'know, when the next terrorist attack is. Gary's teammates include Joe, a blonde quarterback type; Lisa, who knows how terrorists think; Sarah, an empath who goes around "sensing" how everyone is feeling; and Chris, a bitter martial-arts expert with a tragic backstory involving the cast of Cats. Presiding over everything is the gray-haired eminence Spottswoode, who has a rather unique way of demanding proof of loyalty from his cadre of freedom fighters. They're all pitted against Kim Jong Il, who wants to level civilization but also has time for the poignant tune "I'm So Ronery."

The movie is funny, sometimes uproarious, but doesn't hit the delirious heights of the South Park movie, one of the funniest comedies of the '90s. It's closer to the hit-and-miss first feature by Parker, Cannibal: The Musical, and probably comes in second to 1997's Orgazmo, which began the long-standing feud between Parker and the MPAA (who objected to Team America's puppet-sex scene). Parker and Stone are all about shitting on everyone, and Hollywood liberals (Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Michael Moore) get the worst of the pair's wrath here; they would probably do likewise for Hollywood conservatives who pose and expound on Republican talking points, if there were any besides Ron Silver (or Arnold Schwarzenegger, who's now more a politician than an actor anyway). I think Parker and Stone just can't resist tearing down anyone who sounds holier-than-thou; they do have a message here, but, typically, it's expressed in jock-filth terms that would make Howard Stern blush.

Consciously structured like a Jerry Bruckheimer action flick (Pearl Harbor takes some lumps in a ballad called "Pearl Harbor Sucked and I Miss You"), Team America sports some true artistry in the form of the puppetry work by the Chiodo Brothers and the intricate set design by visual consultant David Rockwell. As usual, heart and soul have been poured into an enterprise that Parker and Stone want you to think they just knocked off after a night of smoking weed. It amuses me that probably the biggest star to appear in any Parker/Stone film is Ron Jeremy (in Orgazmo); after Team America, which thoroughly trounces the Hollywood elite, the duo shouldn't expect many actors to chomp at the bit to work with them. Nor, I think, do they care; in South Park and now Team America, Parker and Stone have resolved their disdain for actors by not hiring any. Their movies now play like goofs made by two guys in their basement, financed and released on Paramount's big dime. Billy Wilder once opined, "Actors: can't make movies with 'em, can't make movies without 'em," and I think he would've understood Team America.