Movies

Hilarious parody takes on Bush, popular culture

01:00 AM EDT on Friday, April 21, 2006

BY MICHAEL JANUSONIS
Journal Arts Writer

The Bush administration, skewered indirectly in V for Vendetta, gets the full frontal treatment from writer-director Paul Weitz in American Dreamz, an often hilarious parody of contemporary American life.

Not only does the current White House come under fire (although in the end it's rather affectionate fire) in American Dreamz. Weitz, who co-directed that insane vision of contemporary American teen sexual appetites, American Pie, also takes aim at the U.S. public's captivation with fame and celebrity at the expense of real issues. In his film, worries about Iraq and terrorism and the national debt take a back seat to the pressing American issue of who will be the next winner of the big American Idol-style TV show American Dreamz.

Politics and showbiz collide in the film as the president's chief of staff (Willem Dafoe) cooks up a scheme to make the president, whose poll numbers have fallen off a cliff, regain his popularity by appearing on American Dreamz during the ratings-grabbing final night of the season. It's the night when the winner of the year-long talent competition is named by toothy, WASPish host Martin "Tweedy" Tweed (Hugh Grant), a national TV star who in reality hates the thought of doing one more season of the hit show and sitting through its awful acts. No wonder. This year's talent crop includes an immigrant cantor from Israel who does rap, an immigrant Muslim terrorist-in-training from Afghanistan who sings Broadway show tunes and a "white-trash" barmaid from Padookie, Ohio.

"Do you think it's dignified?" asks President Joseph Staton (Dennis Quaid) upon hearing he has been booked for American Dreamz.

You couldn't have begged for a better stand-in for George W. Bush than fellow Texan Quaid, who comes by his twang naturally and looks quite a lot like the president, although better. Marcia Gay Harden is even more of a ringer for Laura Bush, right down to the hairdo. She's startled on the night after her husband's re-election to discover he has taken a new-found interest in reading the newspaper. Not just any newspaper. All newspapers, even the Canadian press. And books. Mountains of books. Suddenly their White House bedroom is flooded with piles of newspapers and books. As the president plows through them he often looks up, the surprise of discovery on his face as he uncovers some new fact. Did you know, he asks, that there are three opposing ethnic groups in Iraq?

THE SET-UP for American Dreamz is sometimes amusing but, sadly, more often heavy-handed and labored as it parodies the White House and Americans who are caught up in the fame game. A big part of the problem is that Weitz has designed his script so we laugh at these people rather than with them. They're played for fools, which doesn't draw one into his film.

The klutzy Omer (Sam Golzari), the Broadway musical-loving novice terrorist who is sent to the United States, as much to get him out of Afghanistan and out of the hair of his handlers, is a buffoon.

Mandy Moore's Sally -- "the best karaoke singer in this county in Ohio" -- fears she doesn't have the talent to win on American Dreamz. And besides, she knows she has a weight problem. Her idiot boyfriend William Williams (Chris Klein) tries to console her, but really just wants her to hurry back to him, breathlessly telling Sally that he has just been named assistant manager of plumbing fixtures. The next step up, he says brightly, is to become the manager of plumbing fixtures.

FORTUNATELY, Weitz pulls himself out of the hole as American Dreamz builds steam on its truly offbeat and funny situations. He bounces between what become four principal subplots.

Omer arrives in America as the house guest of distant relatives, the Rizas, whose gay son Iqbal (Tony Yalda) has installed his own curtained stage in the basement to practice show tunes and whose dream is to make it onto the American Dreamz show.

President Staton, sensing there's something more to the news than the capsules he has been fed in his daily briefings, throws away his daily prescribed dose of "happy pills" and becomes a loose cannon, which makes his chief of staff panicky.

Sally, with the prodding of her mother (the always wonderful Jennifer Coolidge) and the machinations of her new agent (Seth Meyers) girds for her shot at long-dreamed-of stardom. Fortunately, her naive boyfriend is just back from Iraq with a wound and can be used as a sympathy prop.

Martin, all but gagging over some of the acts he has to pass judgment on, slithers around the edges, unctuously using his fame and good looks to go after whatever he wants with the clear-eyed certainty that he can get it. He's the slimy character you love to hate . . . and then love, whenever he gives a goggle-eyed look to some truly terrible performers he's judging.

After a stumbling start, Golzari's Omer becomes a wonderfully simple and sweet man who finds himself stuck in a very tight predicament, caught between two worlds. As he becomes increasingly popular with the American Dreamz fans, his terrorist leaders arrive from Afghanistan with a dangerous, world-shattering assignment. "Are Americans to blame for America?" he wonders.

Moore shows two sides of Sally, too, which makes her human but is also a tough balancing act. There's the sweet-faced perky singer with a weight problem that the public falls in love with. But there's also the grasping, All About Eve side of Sally that craves stardom at any cost. A scene in which we realize she's using her boyfriend for her own ends, planning to dump him when he's no longer needed, stings. That's especially true because Klein plays William as a trusting, gentle soul who only wants to give his love. It adds a note of poignancy to the film's black comedy.

IN THIS stew of stars-in-their-eyes vipers, it's no wonder that the often addled and dim-witted President Staton comes out looking sympathetic and rather good. At least he means well. And he's definitely trying to become a better person and a better president. "Things that were once black and white now are a little gray seeming," says the man who has been assured that he has been hand-picked by "the Lord" to be president. He becomes a sort-of strong hand on the rudder of the wacky doings going on in American Dreamz.

mjanuson@projo.com / (401) 277-7276

****

American Dreamz

Starring: Hugh Grant, Dennis Quaid, Mandy Moore, Sam Golzari, Chris Klein, Willem Dafoe, Seth Meyers, Marcia Gay Harden, Jennifer Coolidge, Tony Yalda.

Rated: PG-13, contains adult themes, profanity.