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Technically this film was made in 1995, but it wasn't released in US theaters until 1996. It was a minor film that I remember renting on the thumbs-up recommendation of Siskel & Ebert back in high school. It has a pretty familiar cast: Cameron Diaz, Ron Perlman, Nora Dunn, Charles Durning, Jason Alexander, Courtney B. Vance, and even a young Elisabeth Moss.
If you're not familiar, this is a satire about a group of liberal college grads who get together and rid the world of conservatives to "make the world a better place" as they say. They start by accidentally killing a dinner guest played by Bill Paxton who threatens them. From there, they start inviting conservative stereotypes and hatemongers to their dinner parties, poisoning their wine if they cross a line. They start to enjoy it so much that it becomes a staple for them.
The tables are turned, however, when they invite a conservative talk-radio personality fashioned after Rush Limbaugh (played by Perlman) who surprises the group by being actually moderate and thoughtful, admitting that his obnoxious takes are just to get ratings. He also turns the tables on them in a more diabolical way, too.
Now, back then, politics were extremely couched in boring CSPAN and PBS television, occasional shows on network TV (like This Week with David Brinkley) but there was always--even with a liberal slant--balance.
Such cannot be said about the political climate here, obviously. To the point where, now, I don't even know if this movie can be seen as satire because we have this new alt-left basically acting like moral arbiters much like these college grads (and it's pretty prophetic how this movie shows how powerful the college kids can become in the real world). I would imagine the irony would be lost completely on this generation, and modern leftist college cretins would take offense to some of the *bad guys* the liberals kill (like an Islamic fundamentalist).
Siskel had a great line in his review about how there was this age-old debate among liberals that dealt with always overthinking, always second-guessing, and being seen as soft. "There's no namby-pamby right winger". Well, this generation of the "left" is still soft, but really tries to come off as tough, bullyish, and intolerant. To me conservatives, even of that time, were whiny little trash gluttons. You had blowhards like Rush always needling the left in just enough of a way to get a rise.
But the liberals in this film are not heroes. They basically succumb to their own self-indulgence and bloodlust.
And the echoes of that are really prominent today, calling themselves...ironically..."progressives". The film has a liberal agenda of its purest kind: to think, reflect, and maybe even doubt. Conservatives always see that as a weakness. But their weakness is their cocksure approach to everything.
Unfortunately the film isn't readily available to stream for free but it is available to rent on some services. I recommend checking it out if you have some time to kill.
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