There is in the David Zucker movie, An American Carol (2010), a mediocre premise and a few limp jokes, and yet the piece generates some screamingly funny satire to boot. It’s true satire, in fact: the kind that upholds a particular standard of virtue as the attacks are made.
At the center is a Michael Moore-like filmmaker (Kevin Farley) who, out of deep disgust with American foreign policy (among other things), resolves to try to get the Fourth of July legally banned. Zucker ravages contemporary liberalism, especially its apathy about jihadism and the hypocrisy, where it may be found, of liberal activists. With hilarious exaggeration (a device of satire, of course) he swipes today’s college professors in a mocking musical sequence.
Although the film is continually right about its targets, it could stand to be a little more incisive about our wars in the Middle East and even war in general. What’s more, it unsurprisingly smiles on “the real America”—the American populace—but, er, it must be admitted that this is the populace that voted for Obama over Romney and, in 2018, packed the House with liberals. The real America is quite ignorant, if only in some measure. Still, in large measure An American Carol is delightful.
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