Review of Silver City (2004) by Sarah S — 23 Mar 2011

Back in 2004 there were all kinds of movies taking jabs at George W. in one way or another. Michael Moore tried directly. Silver City, from director John Sayles, takes a more subtle approach. Sayles fifteenth film as writer-director-editor is filled with wild ambition. And he scores a casting coup by having Oscar winner Chris Cooper star as the Dubya figure. Cooper stars as Dickie Pilager, a not-so-sly dig at Bush's environmental policies. Dickie isn't yet president, nor is he from Texas. He's running for governor of Colorado, where his father, longtime senator Jud Pilager (Michael Murphy), is a major power figure. Jud is looking to maintain that power by using his cronies to get his dumb son into office. Cooper is at his loosest and funniest as Dickie, using a little bit of Dubya syntax in his language and employing his trademark lost look. Dickie is nothing more than an empty suit controlled by nefarious puppeteers. This makes for frustrating limitations for Cooper's performance, as well as the movie as a whole.

Sayles mixes the humor with Chinatown-style noir. A dead body floats up in a Colorado lake as Dickie is shooting a campaign commercial, an event that spurs Dickie's campaign manager, Chuck Raven (Richard Dreyfuss, more brutally funny than he was allowed to be in W.) to hire Danny O'Brien, a reporter turned detective played wonderfully by Danny Huston (son of legendary director John Huston). As with all of his films (Lone Star, City of Hope, Sunshine State), Sayles is interested in exploring the roots of corruption, but such ambition is unfortunately held back due to the love story involving Danny and his ex-lover (Maria Bello).

But Silver City is filled with undeniably wicked mischief. Take Daryl Hannah as Dickie's sexy, but screwed-up sister, or Billy Zane as a lobbyist without a soul. Dreyfuss digs into his role, chewing on the snappy lines he gets, such as when be explains that Dickie will promise the Christian right that he will preserve cultural equilibrium, which translates into (his words) 'no handouts for homos'. Sayles obviously bites off more than he can chew, even with a $5.5 million film, but it's a risky bite, one that counts in Teflon Hollywood.