4-25-06, 8:55 am
Intended as a satire on the state of the nation, American Dreamz is more amusing than cutting edge, despite the fact that it caricatures the current president waging war on the world.
Coming a decade after Rob Reiner's The American President - characterised as a Clinton clone - it's the second film in which George W Bush has been sent up as little more than a simpleton.
The other was Scary Movie 4, in which Leslie Nielsen plays the commander-in-chief refusing to respond to an alien invasion because he wants to know the end of a children's story.
God knows what the Republicans are making of the matter, since you might remember that they had apoplexy when Michael Moore took the piss out of the prez as a golf-playing war hero.
In American Dreamz, the president is played by Dennis Quaid, introduced in bed reading the Guardian saying: 'There's a lot of interesting stuff in here.'
To which Willem Dafoe playing the Rumsfeld role replies sardonically: 'I think 'interesting' is stretching it.' The only difference between this president and the real thing is that the fictional one can read.
However, the revelation is Hugh Grant as a Simon Cowell character running a reality TV show called American Dreamz, in which the contestants are required to sing before an audience which votes them out one by one.
The difference is that Dafoe comes up with the idea of the president being invited to judge the final two contestants, with Dafoe relaying his lines via an earpiece. It was claimed that this happened during the president's election debates.
Grant oozes odium like he's never done before. Describing the human interest stories that he wants, he says: ' I'm talking human. And by human, I mean flawed. And by flawed, I mean freaks. So find me some freaks.'
The Kendoo character describes herself as middle class. Grant isn't so prissy, simply saying that she's white trash, exactly the sort who turn him on.
Such is her opportunism that she throws off her boyfriend when she hears that she has been picked, only for him to run away and join the army, finding himself inducted into the war in Iraq and wounded two weeks later.
However, it is her morally bankrupt agent (Seth Myers) who provides the lines that determined the neocon strategy. 'Everyone in the US thinks that they're middle class because they like having someone to look down on.'
Naturally, the Iraqis are comedy caricatures straight out of the Carry On manual, sending poor Omar to live with his rich auntie and uncle in LA, along with their gay showbiz son and shopaholic daughter.
There are phoney Pepsi ads, a reference to pretzels and repeated references to the president being manipulated. The only person not referenced is Blair, but Grant's British pedigree is abundantly clear.
Sadly, that said, it cops out, the conclusion being as predictable as it is unimaginative - the puppet masters getting their comeuppance while the man in charge gets a makeover.
As he says when asked why he stood for president, 'to show my dad that any idiot can do it.' It mirrors Grant's earlier remark: 'Any idiot can be on TV nowadays.'
However, as Grant insults Sandy, he says: 'That was a joke.' She replies: 'I know.'
Which leads him to say: 'You didn't laugh.' And that's the problem. Great effort, bad execution. Cynicism to the end - don't you just love it?
From Morning Star
