Let's hit the consumer cult with songs! “Kill Smouchi” is a combination of the incompatible: a film with a cartoonish manner of filming, scenery of a children’s program and an adult rating, where comedy coexists with drama, harsh satire with sentimentality and sweetness, and moralizing is interspersed with obscene abuse. However, this is usually the case when Danny DeVito sits in the director's chair. Suffice it to recall his "War in the Rose Family" and "Throw Mom off the Train", where he made a lot of mockery of the institution of family and marriage. This time, the turn came to children’s programs, another sacred cow of modern society, in the butchering of which De Vito’s misanthropic views are fully manifested.
The story begins with the fact that Randolph Raduga, “the kindest presenter of America” and “the best friend of children”, extorting money from their parents for participating in his program, once takes a bribe from the wrong ones – and now he is already being led under the white hands of FBI employees, and his airtime, state penthouse, commissions from souvenir sales and even a team of Lilliputians pass into the hands of simpleton Sheldon Mopes, a performer of moralistic songs in the style of folk in a fuchsy rhino costume. A couple of appearances on the covers of leading publications - and Randolph dreams of killing the Smoochi rhino, while all of America is ready to carry in their arms their new idol with a cotton-wooled back. And how not to love this charming guy in his naivety? A pacifist who eats only plant-based food without dyes and performs at free concerts in hospitals, children's centers and drug addiction clinics? But alas! The world of fabulous jungles and plush rhinos is limited to the blue screen, while outside its borders, greedy adults meticulously count every cent they can get from the sale of another box of air flakes or a can of cola with the image of Smouchy, Muchi or another puffy character. Therefore, Sheldon, who persists in his unselfishness, causes them to feel the opposite of tenderness, as a result of which the life of this pious eater of soy hot dogs with spirulina sauce is under serious threat.
Interestingly, the role of the idealist Sheldon Mopes went to Edward Norton, who had already tried to undermine the foundations of post-industrial consumer society in the film Fight Club. But if his weapon was nitroglycerin, in Kill Smuchi, his character struggles with the system of making young citizens worthy members of the consumer society with songs that instill in children the importance of intangible values, such as family ties and friendly support. Norton's character, sweet as "cherry syrup on legs," prevents the film from becoming a truly evil satire on the world of entertainment for children. However, this role is perfectly handled by Robin Williams, who embodies on the screen the image of the antagonist Smouchy - angry at the life of Rainbow Randolph, easily passing from despair to hope and from love to hate, which involuntarily reminds of the duality of the actor's nature, which eventually led him to a tragic death. It is Randolph’s evil jokes with the tossing of cookies in the form of a penis or a setup with a performance at a Nazi rally that do not allow the film to slide either to black satire or to the sweet melodrama, where she is desperately carried away, storylines with criminal sponsors of charitable events or the love story of Sheldon and the cynical assistant producer Nora, who turned into romance under the influence of unpretent rhino songs.
As a result, the film with a soft, like pink plush, satire, if not eradicates the vices of the modern children's entertainment industry, then, turning to the viewer one or the other side, does not let him get bored and leaves behind a pleasant aftertaste from a mixture of sharp intolerant jokes of the gall and cynical Randolph and sweet melodic songs by Sheldon. A kind of chocolate with pepper without preservatives, dyes and flavors.