Starring: Trey Parker (I), Matt Stone (I), Elle Russ

9 out of 10 Stars

Team America: World Police is crude, disgusting, infantile, churlish and is also, hands down, the funniest movie of the year. Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the geniuses behind South Park, may be the only satirists (we'll also leave room for Chris Rock) whose ideological bent hasn't been co-opted by a national party. Much as their other big screen success, Bigger, Longer, Uncut, no one is spared and the only question isn't whether you're deserving of their spot-on critiques (you are), it's whether you've become their unfortunate target.

They make fun of jingoism (Team America's theme song is "America, Fuck Yeah!"), celebrity activism (a lot of big names won't like this movie), America's cowboy attitude with the world, cowboy jingoist songs (country singer Toby Keith won't like this movie much either), Broadway shows, the United Nations, marionettes, playing with dolls, action movies, and their own film. They're unflinching (and completely haphazard) in their approach, whether it's to lampoon characters on the Left or the Right, but it seems it is the Left, particularly the Hollywood Left, left largely alone in all the Daily Show and Saturday Night Live satire, that gets their undivided attention.

Gary Johnston is a great Broadway actor. He's the lead in a musical called "Lease" (a substitute "Rent") and he sings the final number "Everybody's Got AIDS!" (because in "Rent" just about everybody did have AIDS). After the performance he's visited backstage by a mysterious man called Spottswoode and is asked to join Team America, an elite tactical crime-fighting unit. Since Gary is an excellent actor he will make an excellent spy (that's all spying is, Spottswoode says, acting) and will be able to infiltrate terrorist organizations. He joins the rest of Team America in their lair inside Mt. Rushmore. He meets Lisa (with whom he will soon have sex in an incredibly funny scene), Sarah (an empath who gives Deanna Troy-like guidance), Chris, and Joe. The mastermind computer is called I.N.T.E.L.L.I.G.E.N.C.E. (with the voice of radio personality Phil Hendrie) and it frequently gives out bad information, "Bad I.N.T.E.L.L.I.G.E.N.C.E," the team members say.

The terrorists (the word is bandied about so much it loses all its meaning, which sounds familiar) are obviously getting weapons of mass destruction (also bandied about) from someone, and the team has to find out who. The who is North Korea's Kim Jong-Il (one of the best villains this year, by far), who is devising the most dastardly plot in the world. After doing away with Hans Blix, in a fiercely funny jab at the ineffectual nature of the United Nations (they plan to become angry and then write a letter if North Korea doesn't comply with inspections), the despot plans to bring all the world leaders to North Korea and activate the weapons of mass destruction (however one does that) as they watch a show put on by the Film Actors Guild, or F.A.G.

F.A.G. is made up of marionettes representing numerous left-leaning celebrities including Martin Sheen, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn, Danny Glover Janeane Garofalo, Liv Tyler, George Clooney, Helen Hunt, Samuel L. Jackson, Ethan Hawke, Alec Baldwin and Matt Damon. Since F.A.G. is attempting to educate those less enlightened and committed to peace, they don't mind helping out Kim Jong Il to achieve their ends.

While Team America is out trying to stop an arms deal, Michael Moore, the "giant socialist weasel," infiltrates the Mt. Rushmore lair with two hotdogs in his fists and explosives strapped to his body. Completely missing from Parker and Stone's celebrity slam-athon is a Barbra Streisand marionette, but perhaps Parker and Stone felt they'd polished her off years ago on South Park. Matt Damon is portrayed here as a complete troglodyte who can barely say his own name. Sean Penn, whose puppet looks like a slick hustler, naively rhapsodizes about the bucolic, peaceful land that was pre-invasion Iraq.

The balloon that Parker and Stone keep blowing up and pricking is our fascination with actors, the import that we give to their utterances, and the self-aggrandizing nature of the actors themselves. Alec Baldwin is revered by Gary, while the F.A.G.s, in the most condescending and patronzing way, keep encouraging everyone to drive hybrid cars, as they decide to help the uneducated masses understand their way to peaceful resolutions. When Team America takes on the celebrities, even though the F.A.G.s have proved to be myopic elitists, too much glee is taken in their puppet destruction (like kids torturing their G.I. Joes). The dispatching of Janeane Garofalo's puppet, which gets shot in the head, and the lingering close-up afterwards, borders on the sadistic.

The songs in Team aren't as melodic or as tightly structured as Bigger, Longer, but they're just as funny. Kim Jong Il's "I'm So Ronery" solo is classic, as is "Pearl Harbor Sucked, and I Miss You."

Team America is erratic in its approach, but consistently, belligerently funny -- unless, of course, you're one of the celebrities lampooned in it.