satire lite

This film skates a thin line between awfulness and rather bleak satire. The tone is unusual - to see Al-Qaeda training camps and suicide bombing played for laughs in such a cartoony fashion is unusual. Yet it works, but possibly only just.

This film is a sharp comedy about what motivates people and but delivers its payload in such a light and frivolous way that it appears many viewers may have missed the point - which is is the director and editors fault in the end. That said, I find many films listed and hailed as comedies deeply un-funny and actually a little disturbing. Happy Go Lucky is a good example. Even Eddie Marshan thought that was a tragedy when he was filming it, and I agreed!

In America Dreamz a lot of the laughs are in the background, in the reactions, often away from the main action of the scene. Quaid's bemused authority as the President is great, another of my favorites was the undercover terrorist applying his sunblock in the jacuzzi.

Anyhow we enjoyed it in our family, but then we liked Music and Lyrics and the first Miss Congeniality. Maybe its because we don't care if its a little silly, professionally delivered, light entertainment ...