Hard to believe, maybe, but South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut is the most impressively vicious and nasty-minded film satire of the year. Aficionados of the TV show won’t need any introduction to its foul-mouthed hilarity and acid-dipped social commentary, but those unfamiliar with the winsome cardboard cut-outs shouldn’t be put off. Since their first appearance, Stan, Kyle, Cartman and Kenny have been harassed by “cultural critics” accusing them of undermining the moral fibre of the youth; but they used to say that about Jim Carrey and The Simpsons, too.
The film cash-in on the lethally popular TV show does its best to make such a transition as difficult as possible by capitalising on its liberation from the straitjacket of broadcast censorship. First there’s no such thing as a bleep in the movies – a swift count reveals around 140 F-words. Then, filling 80 minutes of screen time – three times the length of a standard episode – allows co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone the chance to come up with some really chewy story ideas.
And they manage to make them cleverly self-referential, too. The four third-graders at the centre of events have favourite TV characters themselves: the flatulence-obsessed Terrance and Phillip. Their spin-off movie, Asses of Fire, is the hot draw in South Park, and Stan and his little buddies perform the time-honoured ritual of the under-age: sneaking into a movie supposedly too mature for them. (As if life couldn’t imitate art any more accurately, American cinemas were deluged with complaints that children were finding their way into South Park, despite its R rating – that is, anyone under 17 “requires accompanying parent or adult guardian”).
The foursome emerge from the cinema spouting obscenities and, rehashing a plot line from one of the TV shows, Kyle’s mother initiates a political campaign to rid America of Terrance and Phillip’s pernicious influence. This results in the installation of a human V-chip in Cartman (which administers an electric shock for every obscenity), and a declaration of war on Canada.
Meanwhile, Kenny, the character killed in every episode, duly expires after attempting to imitate a gross stunt from Asses of Fire, and heads off to the nether world to find Saddam Hussein in the sack with Satan. It’s this last plot detail that has attracted the most awestruck gasps from reviewers and audiences alike – but it’s also the kind of thing that works better in a script conference than it does on screen. In truth, an hour in, the film shows signs of strain: the effortless hilarity of the opening segment evolves into an occasionally flailing string of sight gags.
Be that as it may, the central plank of the South Park mission – that society is idiotic to blame its ills on its cultural products while it refuses to accept responsibility for footling problems, such as guns – shines through. This makes the film sound almost serious – don’t be fooled.