An American Carol: Kentucky Fried Patriotism

An American Carol sets out to deliver a pro-America, pro-strong national defense message as people across America get ready to vote in the 2008 presidential election.  To that end, it accomplishes at least the former and (box office sales permitting) hopefully the latter.  Writer and director David Zucker pull neither punches nor debasing humor in going after the anti-war Left and other apparent radical activists in the country—exemplified by the character of Michael Malone (Kevin Farley), who bears a striking resemblance to documentary filmmaker and pro-Left activist Michael Moore.  Set in the familiar (and overplayed) story ofA Christmas Carol, we follow Malone’s journey as he learns what America might be like without war: no Civil War (or end to slavery), defeat at the hands of Nazi Germany, and surrendering to the current threat of Islamic terrorism.  In the end, Malone, like Scrooge, discovers that whatever his disagreements are with American policy, there would be no America and no freedom without our military and use of force to defend our freedom.  (He also learns that President Kennedy, despite revisionist history, was fiercely anti-Communist and pro-military and pro-war when America’s national security was at stake—a message long overdue.)

Now those are themes you don’t see coming out of Hollywood, or at least things we haven’t seen since, what, The Green Berets?  For me, it was a refreshing change from the stories about the evil corruption of our governmentor a rogue CIA or the negative portrayal of our service members.  And that the story was told through satirical humor only made it more enjoyable to watch and appealing in message.

Of course all was not perfect in this movie.  Some might not like that the story did not perfectly fit the Dickensian framework—like sayScrooged, but that did not bother me as I’ve seen that story in one to many films and “special episodes” in sitcoms of yesteryear.  One hyped part of the movie was the number of closet-conservative celebrities who would appear—in contravention of Hollywood norms—in a conservative-based film.  Some of the appearances—Kelsey Grammer as General Patton andDennis Hopper as a judge trying tostop the ACLU—were well done and developed characters.  On the other hand, Jon Voight’s performance as President George Washington was underutilized even though he had one of the most moving scenes of the film.  Farley gave a good comedic, slapstick, but at times serious take on the Malone roll, who was both the protagonist and butt of most of the film’s jokes.

On balance, I’d recommend this film, particularly for those who enjoyed Zucker’s earlier (and funnier) works (Airplane!, Top Secret!,The Naked Gun).  I’d also recommend this movie for the remaining undecided voters (or the wobblyvoters) out there.  Zucker’s has stated he made this film both to expose the radical Left’s assault on America and to convince voters that on Election Day the only real issue is national security because no matter what you feel about a particular domestic policy, they don’t matter if we no longer live in a free and safe country.  Maybe the guy who built a cult movie empire on sex and fart jokes has a point.