I must have some really bad karma saved up for me, because my unfortunate task to review David Zucker's An American Carol was so unpleasant, I actually felt my brain melting in my skull. I must preface my review with the knowledge that multiple customers who have rented this fine feature film from the video store where I work have returned it out of pure disgust, demanding some sort of justice for their mistakes (aka refund). And then I found out I would have to watch it. I must really like you guys...
Within the first 5 minutes, I had a good sense of how the rest of this "film" would play out, as Zucker and co. show a group of hapless terrorists (all named Mohammed Hussein no less) as they make sordid attempts to suicide bomb everything in sight. They of course fail, and only manage to blow up their own leader's car after all their efforts to murder infidels. Ha. Ha. Ha. Hilarious...No other movie could better illustrate the distinctions between distasteful humor and actual humor as clearly as this one. I'm not too concerned with taste more often than not, but c'mon, even I know that these are bad jokes gone worse with no consciousness as to how delicate these situations are; jokes about terrorism and Nazi's and concentration camps and homosexuality can be funny (if even barely so), but the attempts to somehow antiquate and justify the humor here falls so flat, it's embarrassing. And how did Zucker get so many cameos? C'mon Kelsey Grammar? Dennis Hopper? Jon Voigt? Have some sense of dignity.
If anything else, this is an attack on Michael Moore and...well that's kind of it. It seems almost pointless though, as even Zucker and co. don't prove anything contrary Moore or anyone else's "anti-American" sentiment. The movie basically promotes America as a land of backyard barbeques and happy suburban families, and equates fighting in the Civil War and WWII as justification for our nation's actions in the Middle East. If A is B, and B is C, then A is C right? Oh, and country music is awesome, can't forget that. But the problem is that while there is obviously some attempt being made by Zucker to criticize those who would doubt/protest American policies, the movie is still a really poorly designed farce/comedy and so we can't really take anything they say to heart. This is nothing more than a movie that is saying everything that we (America) do is right, so there. It's basically a 9-year old who is trying to present some semblance of a real debate armed only with "Because" and "Nuh-uh".
This movie didn't even provoke me to combat it's message, it was just stupid. There wasn't any new information here, and instead of tackling one issue and really exploring it, the movie spewed garbage about every issue it could in an hour and half, white-washing over everything and putting it all under one category of being "wrong". I don't think Zucker will be fortunate enough to ever make a comedy again (if there is justice in the world) but this is clearly one comedy that is best left to rot. Forever and ever. Oh yeah, and if you need a real indicator as to how messed up this movie's message is, this is the only time I've ever seen Bill O'Reilly levelheaded and considerate and not screaming at the top of his lungs. That just doesn't happen in reality, because this movie is O'Reilly's wet dream.
