“An American Carol” Offers a Deep Message — and a Big Dose of Parody and Physical Humor

By LIBBY YOUNG
UNLEASHED STAFF

“An American Carol” is a comedy that delivers a surprisingly deep message through parody and physical humor.
It’s brought to us by David Zucker, who also directed “The Naked Gun,” the “Scary Movie” series and “Airplane!” It’s about a man named Michael Malone (Kevin Farley) whose character is an obvious spoof of director Michael Moore (“Sicko,” “Fahrenheit 9-11,” “Roger & Me”).
Malone is very un-patriotic. He’s made many anti-American documentaries and believes America has been too violent and is hated by all other nations.
His next step is to move to abolish the Fourth of July. While organizing protests, his nephew, who is in the navy, visits, and announces he will soon be deployed. He then invites Malone over for the Fourth of July. This is met with disgust and confusion on Malone’s part.
Meanwhile, terrorists are trying to figure out their next attack, hoping to be helped by an American who hates the country enough to help them.
Malone is searching for a feature film to direct and is brought together with the terrorists who are searching for an excuse to get into the U.S. and get press passes.
Malone, still ignorant and thoroughly anti-American, helps them get into a concert that is being held for troops, where the terrorists start to plan a new attack.
Allusions to the classic “A Christmas Carol” begin to take form. President John F. Kennedy appears to Malone and warns him that he will be visited by three spirits. The first of these is General George Patton (Kelsey Grammer), who takes Malone to places like a college campus and a courtroom, to show how brainwashed people are becoming. There are zombie ACLU lawyers and dancing, singing college professors.
They also visit history’s battlefronts.
Malone is then taken to a church, and is shown the wreckage of the Twin Towers by George Washington (Jon Voight). Washington is a ghost with a present-day mission: to make Malone aware of the sacrifices, loss and destruction of the attack on the World Trade Center. He tells Malone to be proud of the heroes of his country.
Malone is finally visited by the iconic Angel of Death (Trace Atkins). Since Malone still seems unfazed by the previous ghostly visits, this ghost shows Malone a future world taken over by radical al-Qaida. Malone seems more personally affected when shown a world after a nuclear bomb during which Malone himself has been killed.
Malone finally begs the Angel of Death to spare him and swears he’ll change his ways.
This movie invokes many thoughts about pride in our country, including how sometimes making the peaceful choice isn’t best for peace.
Overall, “An American Carol” is a very funny parody with a great message, a movie steeped in laughs, patriotism and thought-inspiring messages.
It was definitely worth seeing.

— Libby Young is a member of the Yakima Herald-Republic’s Unleashed team. She attends La Salle High School.