Christmas Day, thousands of Americans filled theaters to see a Japanese corporation’s movie, by a Canadian director, mocking the dictator of North Korea. All in the name of freedom — and rude, raw laughs.

And if we’ve learned nothing from the international incident titled “The Interview,” it’s that Kim Jong Un has good reason to fear this stupider-than-stupid comedy. However broad the rest of the movie might be, it’s not the movie assassination plot against Kim that would give North Koreans ideas. It’s the ridicule of their “godlike leader.”

Randall Park’s interpretation of Kim is dark, and darkly funny, a delusional turn with wincing, believable bits of psychoanalysis. Whatever else co-directors Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, working from a story they dreamed up, present here, it’s the “common sense” depiction of an overgrown, insecure boy in a bubble who insists the world notice him that sticks.

James Franco may not seem real as Dave Skylark, an idiot TV chat show host, and he goes out of his way to amp up the wacky. Rogen’s TV producer, Aaron, may show signs he worries that he’s smarter than his boss, the host, but not smart enough to do “real journalism.”

But Park’s Kim is a stereotypical hoot, a foul-mouthed margarita lover who keeps Katy Perry CDs in his favorite tank, a roly poly paranoid who knows everybody around him, in his “compound,” in his country and in the world, is out to get him. A dictator with Daddy Issues, who loves “The Big Bang Theory” and “The Dave Skylark Show”? We can buy that.

“You so FUNNY, Dave!”

That fandom is what gives fluff-interviewer Dave the idea to get “the most famous guy on the planet,” and also “the most dangerous,” on his show. Aaron is stunned when the interview is set up, more stunned when the CIA (Lizzy Caplan) wants him and Dave to poison “The Supreme Leader” and rid the world of a tyrant.

There’s also sharp and snide commentary on U.S. meddling with other countries and CIA screwups mixed in with real world North Korean shortcomings.

“Interview” is never much more than a cult film, a Kevin Smith comedy as directed by Quentin Tarantino, or vice versa, a quirky oddity. But Dear Leader made it such an issue that seeing it is borderline patriotic.

This was a costly victory that only becomes a complete victory when Anonymous loads the film onto every computer in the People’s Republic.