Team America: World Police
Team America: World Police is a 2004 puppetry comedy film directed by Trey Parker, who co-wrote the film with Matt Stone and Pam Brady. Parker and Stone also star alongside Kristen Miller, Masasa Moyo, Daran Norris, Phil Hendrie, Maurice LaMarche, Jeremy Shada, and Fred Tatasciore. A satire of action film archetypes, American militarism, and the foreign policy of the United States, the film follows the titular international counterterrorism force, who recruit a Broadway actor to assist in saving the world from Kim Jong Il and his coalition of Islamic terrorists and liberal Hollywood actors.
Team America: World Police
- Trey Parker
- Matt Stone
- Pam Brady
- Scott Rudin
- Trey Parker
- Matt Stone
- Trey Parker
- Matt Stone
- Kristen Miller
- Masasa Moyo
- Daran Norris
- Phil Hendrie
- Maurice LaMarche
- Chelsea Marguerite
- Jeremy Shada
- Fred Tatasciore
Thomas M. Vogt
- October 14, 2004 (Denver)
- October 15, 2004 (United States)
English
$32 million[4]
$51 million[4]
The film intertwines puppetry and miniature effects in a manner similar to Supermarionation, known for its use in the television series Thunderbirds, although Stone and Parker were not fans of that show. They worked on the script with Brady, a former South Park writer, for nearly two years. The film had a troubled production, with various technical problems regarding the puppets and the scheduling extremes of finishing in time for its theatrical release. It also came into routine conflict with the Motion Picture Association of America, which returned the film multiple times with an NC-17 rating due to an explicit sex scene involving puppets.
Team America: World Police premiered at the Denver Film Festival on October 14, 2004, and was theatrically released in the United States the following day. The film received generally positive reviews from critics and was a modest success at the box office, grossing over $51 million worldwide on a $32 million budget.[4]
Plot[edit]
Team America, an international organization dedicated to counterterrorism, defeats a group of Islamic terrorists in Paris, accidentally destroying the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, and the Louvre in the process. The team includes Lisa, an idealistic psychologist; her love interest Carson; Sarah, a psychic; Joe, a jock who is in love with Sarah; and Chris, a martial arts expert who harbors a hatred towards actors. Carson proposes to Lisa, but a terrorist kills him in the middle of the act.
Team America leader Spottswoode brings Broadway actor Gary Johnston to Team America's base in Mount Rushmore and asks him to use his acting skills to infiltrate a terrorist cell. Unbeknownst to the team, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il is supplying terrorists across the globe with WMDs. Gary infiltrates a terrorist group in Cairo. The team is discovered and a chase ensues, ending with Team America killing the terrorists. However, Cairo is left in ruins, drawing criticism from the Film Actors Guild (FAG), a union of liberal Hollywood actors led by Alec Baldwin.
At Mount Rushmore, Gary tells Lisa that as a child his acting talent caused his brother to be brutally killed by gorillas. While the two grow close and have sex, terrorists blow up the Panama Canal in retaliation for the Team America operation in Cairo, killing thousands. The FAG blame this on Team America, and Kim chastising the terrorists for detonating one bomb too early. Gary, feeling his acting talents have again resulted in innocent people dying, resigns from Team America. The remaining members depart for the Middle East, but are defeated and captured by North Korean forces while Michael Moore blows up Team America's base in a suicide attack. In North Korea, Kim invites the FAG and world leaders to a peace ceremony, planning to detonate several bombs around the world while they are distracted.
Succumbing to depression, Gary is reminded of his responsibility by a rambling speech from a drunken tramp. Returning to the team's base, he finds Spottswoode has survived Moore's bombing. After regaining Spottswoode's trust by giving him a blowjob and undergoing one-day training, Gary goes to North Korea, where he uses his acting skills to infiltrate the base and free the team, although Lisa is held hostage by Kim. The team is confronted by the FAG and kill most of their members in an ensuing fight. After Gary uses his acting skills to save Chris from Susan Sarandon, Chris confesses to Gary that the reason he dislikes actors is because he was gang-raped by the cast of the musical Cats when he was 19 years old.
The team crashes the peace ceremony and Gary goes on stage, delivering a recontextualized version of the tramp's speech, arguing that "dicks", though criticized by "pussies", are necessary to stop "assholes", which convinces the world's leaders to unite. Kim betrays and kills Baldwin for being unable to counter Gary's argument, but he is kicked over a balcony by Lisa and impaled on a German delegate's Pickelhaube. Kim reveals his true form as an extraterrestrial cockroach and flees in a spaceship, vowing to return. Gary and Lisa happily begin a relationship and the team reunites, preparing to fight the world's terrorists once again.
The film also features a man dressed as a giant statue of Kim Il Sung, two black cats who pose as panthers, two nurse sharks, and a cockroach, with the difference in size with the marionettes played for humorous effect. A poster of the Barbi Twins was featured on the billboard in Times Square, making the Twins the only non-marionette humans in the film.
Reception[edit]
Critical response[edit]
On Rotten Tomatoes, Team America: World Police has a 77% based on 198 reviews and an average score of 7.00/10. The site's consensus states, "Team America will either offend you or leave you in stitches. It'll probably do both."[31] On Metacritic the film has a score of 64 out of 100 based on reviews from 38 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[32] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a "B" grade on an A+-to-F scale.[33]
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone praised the film as "A ruthlessly clever musical, a punchy political parody and the hottest look ever at naked puppets."[34] Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "Team America: World Police is to political commentary what lap dancing is to ballet. There is no room for subtlety. Aiming a rude, foul-mouthed political satire everywhere -- left, right and center -- Trey Parker and Matt Stone blow up a good deal of the world, not to mention the egos of many Hollywood personalities."[35] Brian Lowry of Variety was positive about the satire, saying the film "goes the extra mile to piss off everybody — which includes gleefully destroying renowned Hollywood liberals, literally and figuratively" but less positive about other aspects of the film: "All told, the clever visual bits and hilarious songs don't entirely compensate for the many flat or beyond-over-the-top spells." Lowry praised the songs saying they "deliver the movie's biggest highlights" and he also praised the production design calling it a "true technical achievement, recreating a dizzying array of sets and costumes at one-third scale and clearly having plenty of fun doing so — down to using housecats as stand-ins for terrifying panthers."[36] Richard Corliss of Time also highlighted the production "The real kick, however, is in the grandeur and detail of the production design, by Jim Dultz and David Rockwell."[37]
Kim Newman of Empire called it "a patchy comedy that's stronger as a genre-mocker than a political satire."[38] Roger Ebert gave the film 1 out of 4 stars and wrote: "I wasn't offended by the movie's content so much as by its nihilism", and was critical of the film's "sneer at both sides" approach, comparing it to "a cocky teenager who's had a couple of drinks before the party, they don't have a plan for who they want to offend, only an intention to be as offensive as possible."[39]
Contemporary and retrospective comment on the film has observed that it takes aim at militarism in the United States, and Hollywood liberals' response. David Edelstein, in a review for Slate, called the film "a stink bomb lobbed at American arrogance and overweening militarism."[40] In The Village Voice, Michael Atkinson wrote "Madly Rorschachian, TAWP appears to rub its shitty boots on U.S. militarism as well as Hollywood liberals".[41]
National Review Online named the film #24 in its list of "The Best Conservative Movies". Brian C. Anderson wrote, "the film's utter disgust with air-headed, left-wing celebrity activism remains unmatched in popular culture."[42] Political and social commentator Andrew Sullivan considers the film brilliant in its skewering of both the left and right's approach on terrorism. Sullivan (a fan of Stone and Parker's other work, as well) popularized the term "South Park Republican" to describe himself and other like-minded fiscal conservatives/social libertarians. Parker himself is a registered Libertarian.[43] Before the film's release, it was criticized by Matt Drudge and conservative group Move America Forward for mocking the War on terror.[10]
Before Team America was released, statements were released by a "senior Bush administration official" condemning the film. Upon receiving the news, the duo called and found it was instead a "junior staffer," causing Stone to quip "What is it – junior or senior? What are we talking about here? Who knows? It might have been the janitor." The two eventually decided it was free publicity, with which they were fine.[5] Some media outlets interpreted the film's release on October 15 to be in theaters before the November elections. Parker said the release date had nothing to do with the elections, and the date was pushed back as far as possible due to production delays, but they had to return to South Park by October 20.[5] Thunderbirds creator Gerry Anderson was supposed to have met Parker before production, but they cancelled the meeting, acknowledging he would not like the film's expletives. Anderson saw the completed film and felt "there are good, fun parts [in the film] but the language wasn't to my liking."[44]
Box office[edit]
Team America earned $12,120,358 in its opening U.S. weekend, ranking number three behind Shark Tale and Friday Night Lights. The film eventually grossed a total of $50,946,640, with $32,886,074 in U.S. domestic receipts and $18,160,566 in international proceeds.[4]
Filmmakers' response[edit]
In an interview with Matt Stone following the film's release,[45] Anwar Brett of the BBC asked, "For all the targets you choose to take pot-shots at, George W. Bush isn't one of them. How come?" Stone replied, "If you want to see Bush-bashing in America you only have to walk about 10 feet to find it. Trey and I are always attracted to what other people aren't doing. Frankly that wasn't the movie we wanted to make." In another interview, Parker and Stone further clarified the meaning of the film's ending, which tries to justify the role of the United States as the "world police":[46]
Legacy[edit]
In the aftermath of the December 2014 terrorism threats by Guardians of Peace on showings of the film The Interview, which resulted in Sony Pictures pulling the film from release,[52] several theatres, including Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin, Texas, protested the loss by scheduling free showings of Team America: World Police.[53] However, Paramount pulled distribution of Team America from theaters, including those in Cleveland, Atlanta, and New Orleans.[54][55][56] This action was seen by President Barack Obama as an attack on freedom of speech by Hollywood studios,[57] and others as an act of pure cowardice.[58] Snippets of the film mocking Kim Jong Il were reportedly set to be included, alongside copies of The Interview, in helium-filled balloons launched by North Korean defectors into their home country in an effort to inspire education on the Western world's views on it.[59]