Current Politics and Movies Seldom Mix Well

Rating: 2/10 (21 August 2006)

If propaganda is gong to have any effect at all, it works best when it's dropped unexpectedly in your lap.
The makers and marketers of this movie wisely never hinted in pre-release or on its DVD cover about it's far-left, bash America, old-Europe, dirge-style fantasy.
Many times as the script unfolded, I found myself saying, "I've seen that bumper sticker!" The brothers covered all the over-used and tired visuals - the "colonies" are deservedly doomed, global abuse of terrorists in American prison camps, the victims of terrorism had it coming, conservatives want to kill children, America is confiscating Korans...They even got to shoot their version of a conservative in the face at the end of the movie. (Hurrah! Let's have tea!) All the same genius can be seen on display on skateboards and in tattoo parlors at fraction of the production cost.
If you make a political propaganda film you should be judged on that basis. This is the left's view of the world and with the exception of Natalie Porter in a Little Bo Peep outfit, it's a dark and unapproachable place. The movie is pseudo-intellectual fantasy set in a world that presupposes that the lies of the left about America, terrorism and themselves are true. What a dark and predictable film. What dark, pessimistic souls.