A Review Of An American Carol

This week-end I caught David Zucker’s An American Carol. The general idea behind it is a Michael Moore stand-in wants to ban the 4th of July — and 3 ghosts, General Patton (yes, that General Patton), George Washington, and the Angel of Death try to straighten him out.

The general idea behind the movie is supposed to be A Christmas Carol meets Airplane and the movie is at its best when it sticks to that formula. However, at times the movie moves away from comedy and focuses on a heavy handed conservative message. Although personally, I didn’t mind that, it was sort of a strange mixture: Airplane style humor, a serious message about the war on terror, and a straightforward conservative take.

Did I like the movie? Yes. Would you like the movie? If you’re reading this page, yes, you probably would. However, that’s part of the reason why the movie is bombing at the box office in week one. It’s a movie that seems to be targeted at a very narrow slice of the populace: hard core, politically aware conservatives who like spoof style comedy mixed with a serious message.

Long story short, I thought the movie was very funny at the beginning and at the end (It was more serious in the middle), I’d give a thumbs up, and if you’re reading RWN, you’re probably exactly the sort of person who’d love the movie. That being said, I think the movie would have been better and would have had an opportunity to reach a much larger audience if they’d stuck with a formula more similar to Team America: World Police, which kept it funny all the way through and didn’t use a hammer and tongs to get its message across.

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