Review of An American Carol (2008) by Chris R — 17 Jan 2009

Well, it could have been worse. There are roughly 3 or 4 nice laughs in this movie. I was expecting none. I am nowhere near the conservative mindset of this film's target audience, but because I consider myself to be a fair target of satire just as much as anything else, I was willing to laugh at my views and be a good sport.

However, this film isn't that funny. None of the political jokes are the least bit on target or original - in fact, when it had the Michael Moore character spouting out things to make him sound stupid, I often thought what he was saying made perfect sense.

All the movie did was promote the stereotype that conservatives are country music loving idiots who think war is the only solution to any national crisis. The jokes that did work had nothing to do with politics at all, and were in the vein of Zucker's earlier work (Airplane, Naked Gun, etc.

). When a terrorist in disguise removed his fake beard to reveal his real beard underneath, THAT was funny. Having every character talk about how documentaries aren't really movies and winning an Oscar for a documentary is no accomplishment at all, that's not only wrong, it's promoting ignorance within a people who already seem to focus their views on truthiness rather than truth.

Maybe Zucker and this movie's fans would do themselves a favor and watch a documentary or two. They might find out that the war on terror isn't so cut and dry after all.