I just got back from seeing Team America. If you are at all a fan of South Park, you need to see it. Even if you aren’t, you probably should. Matt Stone and Trey Parker are the best satirists in America right now.

In Team America they’ve taken a format best known for a sixties show about American largesse and turned it into a biting take on modern warmongers as well as the enablers of international atrocities.

Or, as they said, “a Bruckheimer film with puppets.” I’m going to let the creators talk about the movie, because they really do say it all. In an interview on ugo.com, Matt Stone said:

We were interested in the emotions behind the politics and the emotions of being American the last three years. Gary’s story is about being confused, being proud and being ashamed when he’s like, “I don’t want the power. I don’t want the guilt. I don’t want the responsibility.” I think that’s what a lot of Americans feel about us being the police of the world, and that has nothing to do with this election. It’s a uniquely American conundrum that we’ve all had to deal with, and we’ll all have to deal with more.

And then Trey Parker added:

There was a period where we thought about putting a Bush puppet in it... it seemed that every time we tried to write scenes for it, it seemed to immediately let the audience off the hook because immediately, the entire movie, the statements it was making, the political side, was all about Bush or all about the last six months instead of being all about America.

This is what good satire is all about. See this movie. The interview is also interesting, though I’d read it after you see the movie. No real spoilers, but it might take away some of the puppet magic.