Review of American Dreamz (2006) by Markb. — 23 Apr 2006

The real surprise in writer-director Paul Weitz's two-for-the-price-of-one satire on George W. Bush's Presidential administration and American Idol is NOT that Weitz picked what are probably the two easiest and most obvious targets available in American culture today, but that he nevertheless succeeded in getting so much freshness and mileage out of them for most of the way.

As clueless, just-reelected President Staton (Dennis Quaid) discovers the greatness of reading newspapers, which leads him to slip into a funk over both the enormity of his job and the fact that he's nowhere near up to it, he's booked by his handlers as a guest judge on the phenomenally popular TV talent show of the movie's title, whose most popular contestants are Sally Kendoo (Mandy Moore), a manipulative, psuedo-innocent all-American cross between the first American Idol's Kelly Clarkson and the current one's Kellie Pickler, and Omer (Sam Golzari), an Iraqi would-be terrorist who loves show tunes and sings them with such effervescent joy that America is completely won over.

Lots of funny lines and accurate observations of showbiz both Hollywood- and Washington-style help, and so do some great song parodies that, in true Spinal Tap/ Mighty Wind fashion, are almost indistinguishable from the real thing, but the performances really make this fly.

Hugh Grant is perfectly cast as the show's self-loathing, Simon Cowell-like host; Moore, here as in Saved!, may be a nice person in real life but plays conniving, self-serving hypocrisy so well you'd think she invented it; Golzari's song-and-dance performances (particularly "The Impossible Dream") are both as sidesplitting and as weirdly lovable as Weitz no doubt wants them to be; Marcia Gay Harden as the First Lady demonstrates why it's easy for some people to thoroughly detest George W.

but still like Laura; and Quaid sidesteps much of the obvious buffoonery inherent in his role with a subtle, even sympathetic characterization. In fact, if you bought the DVD of Fahrenheit 9/11 the day it came out and have watched it at least half a dozen times since, you're likely to feel that the movie takes it much too easy on Bush.

..but then one of Weitz's most distinctive characteristics as a writer-director is the fundamental kindheartedness he shows toward all of his characters; it's what made the original American Pie one of the few teen raunchfests that intelligent adults caenjoy without shame, and it manifests itself here again when Weitz gives the otherwise despicable Sally a convincing speech about her childhood that explains why she's the way she is.

On the other hand, the Dick Cheney/ Karl Rove-like Chief of Staff played by Willem Dafoe doesn't quite work; nothing wrong with the actor, but there's no sense of right-wing entitlement here, no deeply felt belief in the ends always justifying the means that really would've allowed Dafoe to nail his parody.

And the other contestants (including the inevitable Whitney Houston wannabe and--of course!--a Clay Aiken type) are so funny that it's a real shame that they're hustled on and off-stage so quickly.

Weitz's greatest liability, however, is his surprisingly, jarringly cynical climax and conclusion (faintly and oddly remiscent of a plot twist in An Officer and a Gentleman), which under most circumstances would earn the writer praise for being uncompromising, but in this specific instance is so sour, unconvincing, hectoring and preachy that it undercuts the 95% of a movie that is so bright, likable and subtle that it its best it resembles Michael Ritchie's sunny mid-1970s middle-America satires Smile and the original Bad News Bears and sends its audience home with a really acrid aftertaste.

With all the end-of-year Oscar bait mostly behind us and the summer blockbusters yet to come, it's become popular (and redundant) year after year to complain that nothing good comes out in the spring.

Well, talented individuals like Weitz and Spike Lee (inside Man) prove that this is a fallacy: they DO come out with original, imaginative stuff in the spring.