"Team America! F--k Yeah!"

Poor Sean Penn. The satire cast his way by Matt Stone and Trey Parker via Team America: World Police has upset him. He charged in a memo dated October 6, and reported by Matt Drudge, that their movie “encourage(s) irresponsibility that will ultimately lead to the disembowelment, mutilation, exploitation, and death of innocent people throughout the world.”

Interestingly, most of the disembowelment, mutilation, exploitation, and death portrayed in the very, very funny Team America is committed against marionette versions of the Hollywood Left community: Alec Baldwin, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Helen Hunt, Janeane Garofalo, Danny Glover, Matt Damon, George Clooney, and even Penn himself. All of them are killed brutally (in puppet fashion) during an ill-advised world peace conference sponsored jointly by the Film Actors Guild (FAG) and North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il. At one point, Michael Moore, a hotdog gripped in each hand and explosives strapped to his bloated puppet body, sacrifices his own life to destroy Team America headquarters, which is hidden inside Mount Rushmore.

The jingoistic Right doesn’t come out of this film unscathed. After all, the heart of it is a devastating spoof of U.S. world police action. (In their fight for freedom, Team America offhandedly destroys the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Great Pyramid, the Sphinx, and other landmarks.) But at a time when the antiwar movement would be best served if liberal celebrities quit blathering nonsense and shut up, Team America’s lampoon of the Baldwin and Sarandon crowd is on target and refreshing.

I loved Team America. However, it is not for the weak hearted. There is extreme puppet violence, including decapitations (Hans Blix is eaten by a shark, for example). There is a disturbing depiction of puppet vomiting. There is graphic puppet sex, including fellatio (but without genitalia; they’re puppets, for crissakes). And I haven’t heard this much bad language in a movie since Al Pacino starred in Scarface two decades ago (none of the movie’s great songs should be sung out in public). So be warned.