The Onion Movie
(dir. Tom Kuntz, Mike Maguire)
20th Century Fox
For 20 years now, The Onion has delivered unparalleled satire of American life in its many forms. Originally (and still) an actual newspaper, The Onion is perhaps best known for their website, and they've also successfully published a series of brilliant books which further the cause of exposing and laughing at hypocrisy on a global scale. The Onion's humour has always been sort of middle-brow. There are tons of intellectual jokes throughout their work, but it's always balanced by a well-placed and timely cock joke.
Things could have turned out quite badly for this project. It was pretty much stillborn, then resurrected, and is now being released direct to DVD. Everyone involved in the project thought the material was not strong enough for a theatre release, and therefore I had a slight worry that Onion humour might not translate to a screen format, that it might be too long-winded or spend too much time extracting every ounce of humour from a topic: but the movie delivers at a great pace and (even better) does not rely heavily on material from the website and books. It's a fresh experience, and funny as fuck. Essentially, this is Kentucky Fried Movie as done by the Onion (KFO anybody?) and notably one finds the name David Zucker (Airplane etc) in the producer credits.
It's also great to report that the movie has high production values - a super glossy look and great cast. There's some neat continuity gags, themes which are returned to from different perspectives, tight dialogue and it's beautifully edited. For a comedy film these things are often secondary, but not in this case.
You'll laugh, you'll wince, and you will nod in agreement as the movie drops smart-bombs on self-inflated idiots. No-one is safe. From the Islamic terrorist training video, through trailers for Steven Seagal's latest action movie (Steven Seagal IS Cockpuncher), and an awesome sequence which involves a hip-hop Wigger being recognised as truly black (only not in the way he wanted) - this is a work of comedic and satirical genius. Highly recommended.
Links
Tags
18th Jun 2008 - Tumblr
4.5