'An American Carol' mini-review

Last night, I saw An American Carol at the DC American Film Renaissance festival and enjoyed it very much. Kevin Farley is excellent as Michael Malone, a thinly-veiled caricature of Farenheit 9-11 director Michael Moore.

In true Zucker style, there are running jokes about Malone's obesity, his romantic haplessness, and the inferior status of documentary filmmakers. Also, Malone keeps getting his face slapped, a cathartic experience for many views.

The funniest scene in the movie was when a courtroom (with Dennis Hopper as the judge) is overrun by zombie lawyers from the ACLU. Hopper and Gen. George S. Patton (Kelsey Grammer) wield pump shotguns as they blast away at the zombies, as Patton shouts: "They're not people, they're the ACLU!"

Robert Davi as the terrorist leader is appropriately sinister, with Serdar Kalsin and Geoffrey Arend as his comic henchmen.

Ideologically, the film leans heavily toward the neocon point of view, glorifying war and derogating the Fourth Amendment ("Enjoy your privacy rights in hell!" Patton shouts at one point). Yet it is very funny, and certainly if it reaches a wide audience, Michael Moore's reputation will be permanently damaged. Here's the trailer one more time: