If you’re easily offended, don’t see Team
America: World Police. But if you’re partial to blistering, nonpartisan
satire done with puppets who curse, puke, sing, and bring the Kama Sutra to
life, it’s your lucky f**king day.
The movie follows the exploits of
Team America, a group of jingoistic do-gooders who travel the globe hunting
terrorists and leaving behind the worst collateral damage this side of a
Michael Bay film (who is not immune to the skewering, thanks to a hilarious
love song entitled “Pearl Harbor Sucked”). When one of their own gets caught in
the line of fire, an actor named Gary is recruited to infiltrate the terrorists
— via patchy skin grafts, awful facial hair, and an actual towel on his head
— and get information about the next attack.ย
Team America learns that all roads
lead to North Korea’s Kim Jung Il, who will no doubt commission some nukes
especially for the US if he gets a copy of this movie. The crabby little tyrant
forges an alliance with Alec Baldwin, George Clooney, Matt Damon (“Matt
Damon!”), and the rest of the left-leaning Film Actors Guild (F.A.G.,
naturally) in hopes of perpetrating an attack that will be “9/11 times a
thousand”… or 911,000.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the duo
responsible for South Park, make it
look soooo easy. Screamingly funny songs, vile sight gags, and filthy dialogue
(including a touching act of loyalty and a soliloquy revolving around a fitting
analogy way too dirty to print) almost cause you to lose sight of what a
technical marvel the film is. Marionettes! The Panama Canal! Panthers!
But don’t look for the incumbent and
the challenger here — Parker and Stone are too clever to go for the obvious.
I
was in quite the mood when I saw Shall We Dance?, having had a
faith-shaking week that I won’t go into since I only have 300 words with which
to defend myself. Suffice it to say that I was choked up by the end of the Finding Neverland trailer that preceded
the film. That’s right — the trailer.
A chick flick if there ever was one, Shall We Dance? stars Richard Gere as
John, a vaguely dissatisfied lawyer who signs up for dance lessons in hopes of
meeting the mysterious woman (Jennifer Lopez) he spied gazing forlornly from
the studio’s window. Instead of the exotic Paulina, however, he gets stuck with
Miss Mitzi (Anita Gillette), the flask-tipping owner, and fellow students
including Chic (Bobby Cannavale) and Link (Stanley Tucci).
For reasons known only to the cinema
gods, John can’t tell his wife (Susan Sarandon) about the dancing, which leads
her to hire a wise private eye (Richard Jenkins) with a sidekick (Nick Cannon)
prone to quotations. Misunderstandings, heart-to-hearts, revelations, blah blah
blah. Not as good as the Japanese original, but for me, it worked.
Forget the frankly boring triumvirate
of Gere, Lopez, and Sarandon — Shall We
Dance? is made digable thanks to professional scene-stealers Tucci (best in
Big Night), Jenkins (the dad on Six Feet Under) and Cannavale (he of the
leading-man good looks and character-actor ego last seen walking off with The Station Agent).
Sometimes, when a movie doesn’t have
to worry about that pesky Oscar campaign, you’ll see testimonials in the ads
from C-level critics instead of respected behemoths like Premiere and Variety. So,
Miramax, here’s my pull quote for Shall
We Dance?: “I kinda liked it. Please don’t fire me.”
— Dayna Papaleo
This article appears in Oct 20-26, 2004.
