In
David Zucker's flat-footed would-be satire An American Carol, a porky documentarian
modeled on Michael Moore (Kevin Farley) sees the light after visitations by
ghosts of conservatism past. Zucker, whose résumé runs from Airplane! and The Naked Gun through the last two entries
in the Scary
Movie series,
has never shown much interest in big-screen politics, and his gag-driven style
doesn't adapt particularly well to political humor. There's only so much
wackiness to be mined from suicide-bomber jokes.
Zucker
co-wrote An
American Carol
with Myrna Sokoloff and Lewis Friedman, tasking the former with plot and the
latter with jokes, which explains why the movie seems to be so often at
cross-purposes, attempting to wring laughs out of hysterical exaggerations and
ponderous lectures. It's like watching an improv comedy group whose premises
consist entirely of Republican talking points. "Neville Chamberlin is signing
away the Sudetenland — go!" (Zucker and Sokoloff have tried their hand at
this particular illustration of Godwin's Law before, in a 2006 campaign ad that
proved too extreme for the Republican National Committee.)
What
makes An
American Carol
overtly depressing rather than merely lame is its allegiance to a diseased
political discourse built on crude dichotomies: Either you're a bellicose,
God-fearing patriot or a troop-hating, traitorous hippie. Before the spirits of
George S. Patton (Kelsey Grammer), George Washington (Jon Voight) and J.F.K.
(Chriss Anglin) show up to teach him a lesson, Farley, whose films include Die, You American Pigs and No Country for Anyone, is enthusiastically planning
a rally to abolish the Fourth Of July. In the movie's Manichean universe, as so
often on the campaign trail, there's no way to question the tactics of the war
on terror without opposing its overarching strategy. When a group of Afghan
jihadists led by Robert Davi ask to retain Farley's services, he's more than
willing to sell out, so long as the money's right.
As
in the joke about hell having the best house band, it's often assumed that good
political humor always comes from the left, a stereotype An American Carol does nothing to disprove. But
great satire never fits neatly within an ideological box. Attention, the ghosts
of H.L. Mencken, Stanley Kubrick, and Jonathan Swift: David Zucker could use a visit.