***SPOILERS AHEAD***
“The Interview” was not at all worth all that trouble. Perhaps the biggest joke is that the Sony almost caused World War 3 over this lazy film. It’s essentially a nothing movie, and considering this is from the group of dudes who came up with the surprisingly self-aware “This is the End,” it even comes as a bit of a let down.
Seth Rogan, playing producer Aaron Rapaport is a bit of a polarizing guy. People either find his throwaway one-liners funny or completely irritating. James Franco, on the other hand plays the talk show host who has an audience with the Supreme Leader himself, Dave Skylark, so over-the-top, it’s as if the guys are trying really hard to convince the audience that this is completely silly and not to be taken seriously at all.
Everybody knows the plot by now. Producer/host duo gets an invitation to interview North Korea’s Kim Jong-un because it’s his favorite show. The CIA contacts the bros to get them to assassinate the supreme leader. And since its Rogan and Franco, you know there’s gonna be lots of stupid jokes about bodily functions and asses. Considering it’s a movie about traveling to an Asian country, you can probably expect come racially insensitive gags.
Surprisingly, the film is bereft of the typical accusing Asian men of having tiny dicks or general impotence, so in a way, that comes as a relief. Instead, there are lots of things making fun of the stereotypical Asian accent and their facial features (Skylark’s same-same but different routine is embarrassing), which are passed off as the dudes being typical buffoonish white Americans. So, instead of the expected frat guy bullshit, it’s more like the stuff you’d have heard in second grade. On the other hand, however, the people in this movie pronounce Kim Jong-un’s name closer to correct than most American’s do. It’s -oon, like baboon, not un, like Uncola.
It’s also incredibly degrading to women in just about every way you can imagine. It casts Lizzy Caplan as a CIA agent whom Aaron accuses of being a honey pot (the practice of using an attractive woman to seduce a man into doing what some sort of higher agency wants). It doesn’t at all go light on fetishizing Asian women, with Diana Bang playing Sook, a North Korean hostess to the Americans, whom Aaron ogles repeatedly and, because Asian women are supposedly enamored with white guys, immediately falls all over him.
But honestly, the majority of the film is mostly pretty harmless. The longest running jokes are Aaron and Skylark riffing with each other, usually about asses, sticking things in asses, saying words that sound like they’re referring to asses even though they aren’t (the “they hate us cause they ain’t us” gag goes on long enough that it’s kinda funny in a stupid way).
The bits with Skylark interviewing his guests in the U.S. are probably the best part of the movie. It’s a shame that they wasted that stuff on this movie because a film spoofing talk show hosts’ attempts to be edgy despite their completely sterile environment because it’s TV and trying to get dirt out of their guests would be quite welcome in the right hands. Everyone probably already knows about Eminem’s “coming out” on the show, which loses its shock value because it’s already been plastered all over news sites. It’s certainly not the smartest gag to pull considering how many gay slurs he’s spouted in his music, but whatever. Rob Lowe’s revelation is by far superior given its pointlessness.
It’s nonsensical that many reviewers have complained about the movie’s lack of political satire, when it obviously had no intention of being anywhere near as smart or as timeless as “Dr. Strangelove.” Director Evan Goldberg surely was aware that to even attempt that without the kind of talent and intentions Stanley Kubrick or Peter Sellers possessed would be completely foolish, wouldn’t work, and would appeal to nobody. They went the cheap route here. It’s simple jokes that everyone will get and maybe half the people who see it will get laughs out of half of it. Don’ t expect too much and you won’t be disappointed.
As for the supreme leader, it seems like a pretty fair depiction of North Korea’s dictator. He’s not presented as a silly fat Asian man who has trouble with the ladies or whatever. Instead, he’s a pretty cool guy who loves fast cars and playing basketball, has major insecurities because of who his dad was, is worried about being perceived as gay because he likes margaritas, and the unfortunate circumstance of having immense power and having created enemies out of the rest of the world. Basically, he’s the Ultimate Bro. He’s almost sympathetic, in a way, which actually seems too generous. He is a horrible authoritarian dictator who keeps his people in line with an iron fist and the threat of death to anyone who opposes him. Let’s not forget about that here. In films made in Allied countries during World War II, Hitler never got such a grand treatment.
The biggest problem is the eventual plot Sook concocts to incite upheaval in North Korea, once she’s explained that killing him won’t solve the problems (actually, an intelligent observation). Don’t get me wrong, it’s cool that a North Korean woman is afforded the ability to solve North Korea’s problems. But the plan is to have Skylark use his interview with Kim to expose the leader’s shortcomings to the North Korean people in order to spur them toward an uprising. Probably most North Koreans are pretty well kept in the dark, but people in any country that has as many problems as North Korea does are usually smart enough to figure out on their own that something isn’t right. The problem isn’t that they are brainwashed into believing the propaganda their leader puts out. It’s more that they don’t have forces to overthrow the powerful government. But the movie treats the people as if they are completely in the dark about the atrocities Kim has committed against them, and it’s the white dudes’ job to expose that. It’s a misdiagnosis of the real problem, and it makes the West’s or, specifically, the U.S.’s brand of “freedom” out to be the solution. It makes the people of North Korea (Asians) out to be intellectually and ideologically inferior rather than simply being powerless.
And, of course, showing an American graphically killing Kim certainly could be considered as an act of war. If some Asian or Middle Eastern country made a movie about killing Barack Obama, how would Americans react? Well, conservatives would revel in it, but you know what I mean. There would still be a general outcry and calls for extra helpings of patriotism to be served with every bucket of popcorn and whatnot.
The most annoying aspect in all of this is Franco’s and Rogan’s and, generally, Hollywood’s whining about free speech and bowing to terrorism and all that shit (even though there still is little evidence North Korea had anything to do with the hacking and threats directed at Sony). It’s not really a free speech issue anyway. Obama has been all for showing the movie. It’s Sony that had to accept movie theaters canceling their showings of the film. Weirdly, this was a film the might have been least likely to play in arthouse theaters, but ironically ended up being shown exclusively in those establishments.
The Franco/Rogan tweets would have seemed somewhat tongue-in-cheek if Rogan hadn’t been caught acting like such a baby about all of it.
Worst of all, citing this as a free speech issue is a slap in the face to so many other movies that get the cold shoulder from movie studios because they think it isn’t what white general audiences will pay to see.
Recently, the AV Club posted an interview with David Oyelowo about soon to be released “Selma” about Martin Luther King Jr., and the challenges surrounding that movie’s production. The most disappointing thing to read was when he talked about the movie taking seven years to complete because of the huge resistance in Hollywood to making a film about King that didn’t include some sort of white savior character. King is arguably the most influential figure in the U.S. of the 20th Century, and there really hasn’t been any major production made about his life. There’s been complaints about the suppression of free speech to get this film or similar ones completed, even though it seems like it will have been so deserving of its place in cinematic history. So, it’s ridiculous to hear people complain that “The Interview” needs to be released for “freedom” or whatever. I wouldn’t argue that this movie would be censored, but the truth is that it hasn’t been censored at all. The movie was briefly cancelled by the studio before being released in select theaters and in digital on-demand. That’s all the resistance it has faced.
And when should we expect to see studio-backed films about Asian-Americans made by a Asian-Americans or better domestic distribution of films made in Asia?
“The Interview” is what it is: a pointless movie with an unnecessary amount of trouble stirred up about it. It shouldn’t be anybody’s patriotic duty to see it anymore than eating at McDonald’s or watching football. Nobody is better off for its existence except the people involved in its production. It will represent little more than an embarrassing episode that drudged up a lot of temporary, forced patriotism for no reason. Keep your fingers crossed though, there’s still time for Kim to start World War 3 over this crap.
Asian and Entertained 