Team America: World Police

Team America: World Police Information

Team America: World Police is a 2004 American satirical action comedy film written by Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Pam Brady and directed by Parker, all of whom are also known for the popular animated television series South Park. The film is a satire of big-budget action films and their associated clichés and stereotypes, with particular humorous emphasis on the global implications of the politics of the United States. The film's title from domestic and international political criticisms that the foreign policy of the United States frequently and unilaterally tries to "police the world." The film features a cast composed of marionettes. Team America focuses on a fictional team of political paramilitary policemen known as "Team America: World Police," who attempt to save the world from a violent terrorist plot led by Kim Jong-il.

The use of marionettes instead of actors in an action film is a reference to Thunderbirds, a popular 1960s British television show, although Stone and Parker were not fans of that show. The duo worked on the script with former South Park writer Pam Brady for nearly two years. The film had a troubled time in production, with various problems regarding the marionettes, as well as the scheduling extremes of having the film come out in time. In addition, the filmmakers fought with the Motion Picture Association of America, who returned the film over nine times with an NC-17 rating. The film was recut by a few seconds and rated R.

The film was released in the United States on October 15, 2004 and received generally positive reviews. Team America grossed over $50 million worldwide. The film was released on DVD in the United States on May 17, 2005, available in both R-rated and unrated versions.

Plot

Team America: World Police, a paramilitary anti-terrorism force, has a home base located inside Mount Rushmore. The team comprises Lisa, a psychologist; Carson, her love interest; Sarah, an alleged psychic; Joe, a jock who is in love with Sarah; and Chris, a martial arts expert who harbors a deep mistrust of actors. The team is led by Spottswoode and a supercomputer named I.N.T.E.L.L.I.G.E.N.C.E.

The team finds some terrorists in Paris, France. During a gun battle, the team inadvertently destroys the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and The Louvre. Carson proposes to Lisa, but a surviving terrorist guns him down. As a replacement, Spottswoode recruits Gary Johnston, a Broadway actor with college majors in Theater and World Languages. Unbeknownst to the team, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il is supplying international terrorists with weapons of mass destruction.

Using his acting skills, Gary successfully infiltrates a terrorist group in Cairo. The team attempts to capture the terrorists. The plot is foiled, but the city is now in ruins. The team is criticized by the Film Actors Guild (F.A.G.), a union of liberal Hollywood actors headed up by Gary's favorite actor, Alec Baldwin. As the team relaxes following their victory, Gary tells Lisa about his childhood: his acting talent caused his brother to be killed by gorillas. The two express their feelings and have sex, but a group of terrorists blow up the Panama Canal.

The Film Actors Guild blames Team America. Gary, realizing that his acting talents have once again resulted in tragedy, abandons the team. The original members depart for Derkaderkastan, but are captured by terrorists including the North Korean government. Filmmaker Michael Moore vengefully infiltrates the team's Mount Rushmore base and suicide bombs the area. Gary is depressed and becomes an alcoholic, only to be reminded of his responsibility by a speech from a drunken drifter.

In North Korea, Kim Jong-il hosts a peace ceremony, inviting the Film Actors Guild and all the world's political leaders. Alec Baldwin is the ceremony's host. Kim Jong-il plans to detonate a series of bombs throughout the world, reducing every nation to a Third World country.

Gary returns to Mount Rushmore and finds the area in ruins, although Spottswoode and I.N.T.E.L.L.I.G.E.N.C.E have survived. After regaining Spottswoode's trust by performing oral sex on him and undergoing a one-day training course, Gary is sent to North Korea where he uses his acting skills to free the team.

There is a violent battle with the Film Actors Guild, in which most of the actors are brutally slain, except Baldwin, who is on stage. Chris finally confesses to Gary that he mistrusts actors because when he was 19 years old, he was raped by the cast of the musical Cats.

The team then confront Kim Jong-il. Gary goes on stage and convinces the world's leaders to unite by using the drifter's emotional speech. Baldwin is killed by Kim Jong-il with a submachine gun, then Lisa kicks him over the balcony. He is impaled on a Pickelhaube and is then revealed to be an alien cockroach from the planet Gyron. The cockroach departs in a miniature spaceship, promising to return. As Gary and Lisa begin a relationship, the team reunites, preparing to combat all the world's remaining terrorists.

Cast

Trey Parker as Gary Johnston / Joe / Carson / Kim Jong-il / Hans Blix / Matt Damon / Tim Robbins / Sean Penn / Michael Moore / Helen Hunt / Susan Sarandon / Drunk in Bar / Additional voices
Matt Stone as Chris / George Clooney / Danny Glover / Ethan Hawke / Additional voices
Kristen Miller as Lisa
Masasa Moyo as Sarah
Daran Norris as Spottswoode
Phil Hendrie as I.N.T.E.L.L.I.G.E.N.C.E. / Chechen terrorist
Maurice LaMarche as Alec Baldwin
Chelsea Marguerite as French mother
Jeremy Shada as Jean Francois
Fred Tatasciore as Samuel L. Jackson
Scott Land, Tony Urbano, and Greg Ballora as Lead puppeteers

The film also features a man dressed as a giant statue of Kim Il-sung, two live cats, two nurse sharks, and a cockroach, with the difference in size with the marionettes played for humorous effect.

Production

After the "hassle" of producing their last film, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, Parker and Stone vowed never to create another film. The film's earliest origins involve Parker and Stone watching Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds on television while bored. When the duo saw the series, they recalled seeing it on television but were not fans. Parker found that the series was unable to hold his interest as a child because "the dialogue was so expository and slow, and it took itself really seriously." The duo inquired about the rights to the series and found Universal Studios was doing a Thunderbirds film directed by Jonathan Frakes. "We said, 'What? Jonathan Frakes is directing puppets?' and then we found out it was a live-action version, and we were disappointed," said Parker.

The two then read in the trades that The Day After Tomorrow had been sold to Fox due to a one line pitch regarding global warming, which Parker and Stone found hilarious and "insane." Parker recalled Stone running up to him during work at South Park holding the paper, who sat down and read the synopsis regarding "sudden global warming attacking the earth." The two were in tears from laughing. The two got a copy of the script, and soon realized that "The Day After Tomorrow" was the greatest puppet script ever written. Originally intending to do a shot-for-shot puppet parody of The Day After Tomorrow, Parker and Stone were advised by their lawyers that there could be possible legal repercussions. The spoof would have been called The Day After the Day After Tomorrow, and been released a day later than The Day After Tomorrow. News broke of the duo signing on to create the film on October 17, 2002, with Stone revealing that it would be a homage to Anderson. The news was confirmed in June 2003, with Variety quoting Stone as saying "What we wanted was to do a send-up of these super important huge action movies that Jerry Bruckheimer makes."

When the duo pitched Team America to Paramount Pictures, the studio believed the film would not be a financial success. The two pitched the film to their producer Scott Rudin first, who immediately "got" and understood the project, and eventually convinced Paramount to give the project the green light. Studio executives were initially unenthused by the project, but were won over when they saw the dailies being shown. The studio was in favor of the film's lack of political correctness, but were confused by the use of puppets. The executives explained that they could not make profit from an R-rated puppet feature, and Parker countered that they had said the same thing regarding an R-rated musical (South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut) but they did. Parker, Stone, and longtime writing partner Pam Brady spent nearly two years perfecting the Team America script. For influences, they studied scores of popular action and disaster films, such as Alien, Top Gun, and S.W.A.T. The duo watched Pearl Harbor to get the nuances of the puppets just right when they were staring at each other, and also used Ben Affleck as a model. To help shape the film's archetypal heroes (from the true believer to the reluctant hero to the guy who sells out his friends for greater glory), they read Joseph Campbell. "On one level, it's a big send-up," Brady said. "But on another, it's about foreign policy." The first draft of the script was turned in well before the Iraq War. The film takes aim at various celebrities, many of whom came out in opposition to the Iraq War in 2003. Brady explained that the film's treatment of celebrities was derived from her annoyance at the screen time given to celebrities in the beginning of the Iraq War, in lieu of foreign policy experts.

The film's central concept was easier to conceive than to execute. Team America was produced using a crew of about 200 people, which sometimes required four people at a time to manipulate a marionette. The duo were forced to constantly rewrite the film during production due to the limited nature of the puppets. The 270 puppet characters were created by the Chiodo Brothers, who previously designed puppets for films such as Elf and Dinosaur. The costumers of the crew were responsible for making sure the over 1,000 costumes remained in cohesive order and were realistic. Production began on May 23, 2004. The project was interrupted multiple times early on in production. As soon as filming began, Parker and Stone labored to find the right comic tone; the original script for the film contained many more jokes. After shooting the very first scene, the two realized the jokes were not working, and that the humor instead came from the marionettes. "Puppets doing jokes is not funny," Stone found. "But when you see puppets doing melodrama, spitting up blood and talking about how they were raped as children, that's funny." The film was filmed by three units shooting different parts of the film at the same time. At times, the producers would have up to five cameras set up to capture the scene filmed.

The film was mainly based on the 1982 cult classic action film Megaforce, of which Parker and Stone had been fans. Many ideas had been copied such as the flying motorcycle sequence. The film was painstakingly made realistic, which led to various shots being re-done throughout the process due to Parker and Stone's obsession with detail and craftsmanship. For example, a tiny Team America-scale Uzi cost $1,000 to construct, and Kim Jong-il's eyeglasses were made with hand-ground prescription lenses. Although the filmmakers hired three dozen top-notch marionette operators, simple performances from the marionettes was nearly impossible, with a simple shot such as a character drinking taking a half-day to complete successfully. Both Parker and Stone agreed during production of Team America that it was "the hardest thing [they'd] ever done." Rather than rely on computer-generated special effects added in post-production, the filmmakers vied to capture every stunt live on film. Parker likened each shot to a complicated math problem.

Even before the scene's submission to the Motion Picture Association of America, Parker planned to "have fun" pushing the limits by throwing in the graphic sex scene. The duo knew the racy film would be met with some opposition, but were outraged when the film came back with their harshest rating, NC-17. The original cut's minute and a half sex scene with Gary and Lisa was cut down to 50 seconds. The original scene also featured the two puppets urinating and defecating on one another. The entire joke was based on what children do humorously with dolls such as Ken and Barbie. At least nine edits of the puppet love scene were shown to the MPAA before the board accepted that it had been toned down enough to qualify for an R rating. Parker contrasted the MPAA's reluctance for the sex scene to their acceptance of the violence: "Meanwhile, we're taking other puppets and, you know, blowing their heads off, they're covered with blood and stuff, and the MPAA didn't have a word to say about that." In addition to the sex scene, the MPAA were also upset with a puppet being eaten alive by sharks. The duo faced a similar conflict with their previous film, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, in 1999.

Filming

The late September 2004 deadline for the film's completion took a toll on both filmmakers, as did various difficulties in working with puppets, with Stone, who described the film as "the worst time of [my] life," resorting to coffee to work 20-hour days, and sleeping pills and coffee to go to bed. The film was barely completed in time for its October 15 release date. At a press junket in Los Angeles on October 5, journalists were only shown a 20-minute reel of highlights because there was no finished print. Many of the film's producers, besides Parker and Stone, had not even seen the entire film with the sound mix until the premiere.

Music

Marc Shaiman was originally hired to compose the original score and help Parker compose the film's songs. He helped compose "Everyone Has AIDS" and "Derka Derk (Terrorist Theme)." He submitted a score, but the studio rejected it and fired Shaiman, hiring Harry Gregson-Williams as a last minute replacement (Parker had instructed Shaiman to score the film as if it were a typical action film, which they agreed would make it funnier, while the studio felt the score should play up the comedy). However, Shaiman still conducted the orchestra in the film's scoring sessions and Gregson-Williams stuck to the traditional action film score concept.

The film's songs include:

"America (Fuck Yeah)": Played throughout various parts of the film, along with the "America, Fuck Yeah (Bummer Remix)," intended to mock the stereotypical American's jingoist form of patriotism.
"Freedom Isn't Free": Played when Gary decides to take a "detour" with Baxter, the limo driver. The song concludes with the declaration that freedom in fact costs $1.05 ("a buck oh five"). It is a parody of nationalistic country songs like "Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue (The Angry American)" by Toby Keith, "Have You Forgotten?" by Darryl Worley and "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)" by Alan Jackson.
"Derka Derk (Terrorist Theme)," an instrumental parody of "Cantina Band" from Star Wars.
"Only a Woman": Played during the love scene between Gary and Lisa; a parody of Diane Warren-penned power ballads from Jerry Bruckheimer-produced action films ("I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" from Armageddon, "How Do I Live" from Con Air, "There You'll Be" from Pearl Harbor.)
"I'm So Ronery": Sung by Kim Jong-il when he feels everyone else is incompetent.
"Montage": Sung when Gary is training with Spottswoode. The song is a stylistic parody of "Push It to the Limit" by Paul Engemann. and "Holding Out for a Hero" by Bonnie Tyler, songs famed for appearances in '80s films. The song features the line "even Rocky had a montage." A variation of the song was featured in the 6th season South Park episode "Asspen."
"North Korean Medley": Gibberish song used to distract the group of people in Kim Jong-il's large mansion before Alec Baldwin's speech. A parody of North Korean pop music by artists such as the Pochonbo Electronic Ensemble and Mansudae Art Troupe, which generally extols the virtues of Kim Jong-il and his father Kim Il-sung; Kim Jong-il's name is repeated over and over. The song is a parody of the song "City Girl Comes To A Village To Get Married."
"The End of an Act": Played after Gary quits Team America and gets drunk; a ballad which poses the question, "Why does Michael Bay get to keep on making movies?" It is a love song featuring the refrain "Pearl Harbor sucked, and I miss you." This song's lyrics and musical style are parodies of love ballads commonly written for action films that the film satirizes, such as "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" by Aerosmith which appeared on the Armageddon soundtrack and "Take My Breath Away" by Berlin from Top Gun.
"Everyone Has AIDS," sung by Gary in the Broadway musical Lease (a parody of Rent).
The song played while the team is debriefing and partying is Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride."
The song playing when the team walks through Kim Jong-il's palace is Tomoyasu Hotei's "Battle Without Honor or Humanity," which was also featured in Kill Bill.
There is also a bonus song sung by Kim Jong-il named "You Are Worthress, Arec Bardwin" during the end credits of the film.

Individuals parodied

Famous people depicted as puppets, and lampooned, in the film include Michael Moore, Alec Baldwin, Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Helen Hunt, George Clooney, Liv Tyler, Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon, Janeane Garofalo, Matt Damon, Samuel L. Jackson, Danny Glover, Ethan Hawke, Kim Jong-il, Tony Blair, Queen Elizabeth II, Peter Jennings, and Hans Blix. With the exception of Jennings, Tony Blair, and Queen Elizabeth (and Sheen, whose death is not shown despite being involved in the F.A.G. vs. Team America battle), all are killed in dramatic and extremely violent ways.

Reactions from those parodied were mixed; Baldwin found the project "so funny," and expressed interest in lending his voice to his character. In a 2008 video interview with Time, Baldwin related how his daughter's classmates would recite Kim Jong-Il's line to him, "You are useress to me, Arec Bardwin." Sean Penn, who is portrayed making outlandish claims about how happy and utopian Iraq was before Team America showed up, sent Parker and Stone an angry letter inviting them to tour Iraq with him, ending with the words "fuck you." Both George Clooney and Matt Damon are said to be friends with Stone and Parker, and Clooney has stated that he would have been insulted had he not been included in the film.

Kim Jong-il, a noted film buff, never commented publicly about his depiction in Team America: World Police, although shortly after its release North Korea asked the Czech Republic to ban the film; that country refused saying that North Koreans had been rebuffed in their effort to undermine the Czech Republic's post-Communist era freedom. The filmmakers acknowledged this in a DVD extra and jokingly suggested he sing "I'm So Ronery."

Moore is depicted as a fat, hot dog-eating glutton who partakes in suicide bombing and is referred to as a "giant socialist weasel" by the supercomputer. Stone explained the reason for this portrayal in an MSNBC interview:

We have a very specific beef with Michael Moore. . . . I did an interview, and he didn't mischaracterize me or anything I said in Bowling for Columbine. But what he did do was put this cartoon [titled A Brief History of the United States of America, written by Moore, animated and directed by Harold Moss] right after me that made it look like we did that cartoon.

A deleted scene also shows Meryl Streep and Ben Affleck (who is portrayed with a real-life hand).

Reception

Reviews of the film are generally positive; it holds a 77% ("Fresh") at the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, out of 192 reviews with the consensus "Team America will either offend you or leave you in stitches. It'll probably do both." The film also holds a rating of 64/100 at Metacritic ("generally favorable reviews"), based on reviews by 38 critics.

Thunderbirds creator Gerry Anderson was supposed to have met Parker before production, but they cancelled the meeting, acknowledging he would not like the film's expletives. Anderson felt "there are good, fun parts [in the film] but the language wasn't to my liking."

National Review Online has named the film #24 in its list of "The Best Conservative Movies". Brian C. Anderson wrote, "the film's utter disgust with air-headed, left-wing celebrity activism remains unmatched in popular culture." However, political and social commentator Andrew Sullivan considers the film brilliant in its skewering of both the left and right's approach on terrorism. Sullivan (a fan of Stone and Parker's other work, as well) popularized the term "South Park Republican" to describe himself and other like-minded fiscal conservatives/social libertarians. Parker himself is a registered Libertarian.

The film suffered oppositional criticism prior to release. In August, Internet news aggregator Matt Drudge blasted Paramount and the filmmakers for trying to "mock the terror war." A week later, the conservative group Move America Forward criticized the film, saying it was "inconceivable" that filmmakers would have spoofed the Nazis during World War II. Before the film was released, statements were released by a "senior Bush administration official" condemning the film. Upon receiving the news, the duo called and found it was instead a "junior staffer," causing Stone to quip "What is it " junior or senior? What are we talking about here? Who knows? It might have been the janitor." The two eventually decided it was free publicity, with which they were fine. Some media outlets interpreted the film's release on October 15 to be in theaters before the November elections. In reality, the release date had nothing to do with the elections; in fact, the film was intended to be released earlier, but production fell behind.

Box office

Team America made $12.1 million in its opening U.S. weekend. The film eventually grossed a total of $50,907,422, with $32,786,074 in U.S. domestic receipts and $18,121,348 in international proceeds.

Filmmakers' response

In an interview with Matt Stone following the film's release, Anwar Brett of the BBC asked the following question. "For all the targets you choose to take pot-shots at," he asked, "George W. Bush isn't one of them. How come?" Matt Stone replied, "If you want to see Bush-bashing in America you only have to walk about 10 feet to find it. Trey and I are always attracted to what other people aren't doing. Frankly that wasn't the movie we wanted to make."

In another interview, Parker and Stone further clarified the end of the film which seems to justify the role of the United States as the "World Police."