Hamlet 2: Ballsy comedy and inspirational movie spoof

He lands a couple commercial parts as a spokesman for a herpes medication and a side bit in the Jack LaLanne Power Juicer infomercial, but when that well runs dry, he takes a job as drama instructor at a high school in Tuscon, Arizona — a town the film humorously depicts as riddled with bigots and Christian fundamentalists (which necessitated that Fleming and Brady shoot in Albuquerque instead). After the school newspaper drama critic cans a two-actor stage adaptation of Erin Brockavitch (2000), Dana enters crisis mode. Could it be that he needs to come up with his own original material? He consults his tiny critic and suddenly hatches a new idea that the boy says is so stupid it might just work: a sequel to Hamlet!The premise of his postmodern play is not all that important. It involves Hamlet traveling back in time to save everyone in Shakespeare’s play from being killed, as well as the musical numbers “Raped in the Face” and “Rock me, Sexy Jesus.” Somehow group sex, a battle of Jesus versus Satan, Hillary Clinton, Dick Cheney, and Albert Einstein (wearing an E=MC squared t-shirt) are involved. The whole production is intentionally bizarre and offensive (as is Hamlet 2 as a whole), and so ACLU lawyer Cricket Feldstein (Amy Poehler) must defend Dana’s right to free speech before the school board and the public.

Racial conflict also comes into play when Dana’s sheltered, white teacher’s pets have to come to terms with dozens of Latino students (whom they assume are all thugs) signing up to be in the play. Evidently the other arts classes they were interested in were canceled due to poor funding, which is about to be the case for the school’s theater department unless Dana’s play can raise at least $6000. And when the play’s lead actor Octavio (Joseph Julian Soria) quits because his parents forced him to, Dana — in that great tradition of inspirational movies like Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995) and Deat Poets Society (1989) — makes a visit to convince Octavio’s ostensibly brutish parents to let the boy make art . . . only to find out that his father is a career novelist and his mother is a celebrated painter with works displayed in the Guggenheim. They disapprove because the play is poorly written and absurd, not because they despise theater.

All in all, Hamlet 2 is hilariously random in its plotting and fearless in its presentation. I get the sense that if people take up arms against its alternative vision of Christ or abundance of un-PC jokes, well, Brady and Fleming really don’t give a damn.