Team America: World Police - DVD Review

It's amazing, with all the technical attention to detail and the originality of the concept, that the word that best describes Team America: World Police by Trey Parker, Matt Stone, & Pam Brady is lazy. The team behind the brilliant, on television and the big screen, South Park completely miss both targets, big budget action films and the current political scene, by either being too lazy to or just forgetting to write a script.

It's an easy mistake to make. You can almost understand how a talented group of writers (despite a few misses, Parker & Stone are undeniably talented) could fall so in love with their unusual concept that they would forget to focus any energy on writing the actual satire. Once the writers came up with the puppet concept, and it is a funny idea, they weren't done yet and the final product, recently released on DVD, feels like they thought they were. Of course, they thought that the ingenuity of the idea would sell itself and, while the very novelty could keep you reasonably entertained for the film's running time, it's almost worse that so little energy was put into the actual screenplay. We wouldn't feel the sting of what this project could have been.

Watch South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut for an idea of what Team America: World Police could have been. Like TA, South Park had a three pronged satirical attack, taking on the MPAA, the culture of blame in this country, and the entire history of the musical at the same time (all encapsulated in the Oscar-nominated "Blame Canada".) I can't believe how many people write off SP as just another silly movie. Listen to how each song sounds like a different hit musical and tell me that's your typical lazy writing. Yea, it's got a few clitoris jokes but you can feel the passion and devotion to the satire behind every scene. It's not just funny, it's also much smarter than it gets credit for (and can make me laugh every time I see it).

Team America starts promising enough with a dead-on skewering of the opening scenes of most Jerry Bruckheimer or Joel Silver action extravaganza. Parker, Stone, & Brady are using the clichés of blockbuster action films to satire the current state of the America as world police mentality. But then it sinks in that they're not going anywhere with it. Watch any ten minutes of Team America and you'll get the idea. And when Parker, Stone, & Brady realize that their puppet idea may be lagging they try to shock their audience into laughing. Watching a puppet get a golden shower is funnier to write or think about than it is to watch. Just take my word for it. A little bit of action satire, a little bit of "naughty" humor, and a little bit of misguided political satire adds up to a lot less than you might think (and I'm not going to get into a political review but does anyone think Helen Hunt is the problem in today's political discourse? I don't personally mind the target but it's indicative of the scattershot laziness of the script.)

As evidenced by the extras on the Paramount DVD, Parker & Stone took the artisanship of their puppets much more seriously than their satirical targets. Everything you could possibly want to know about how Team America was made could be found on this DVD. It's a well-done package for fans of the film. But if you're less curious about how the film was made than why, you won't find too much screenwriting insight on the DVD. Parker, Stone & Brady want to ridicule big budget action films for their lack of subtlety and the laziness of their screenwriting but end up falling into the same trap. No matter your target and no matter your concept, satire won't write itself. It requires a talented puppeteer to pull the strings.