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American Dreamz film review
AMERICAN DREAMZ
Running time: 107 mins
Starring: Hugh Grant, Mandy Moore, Dennis Quaid, Chris Klein, Willem Dafoe, Marcia Gay Harden
Satirising reality TV talent shows and a Bush-like president is like shooting fish in a barrel. As topics for ridicule, they effectively lampoon themselves, but that hasn't prevented writer/director Paul Weitz having his shot. American Dreamz is a toothless spoof about a country obsessed with celebrity, led by a gormless puppet. In an effort to present itself as an equal opportunity mocker, it also targets terrorism, the Middle East and the armed forces. Not meant to be as barbed as say Network or Wag The Dog, American Dreamz nevertheless still carries an undercurrent of healthy cynicism with its most obvious manifestation being in the embodiment of the two leading characters.
Martin Tweed (Hugh Grant) is a thinly veiled Simon Callow, replete with disarming bluntness, voracious ego, massive self-loathing and an English accent. "I envy myself deeply," declares an unabashed Tweed. As the presenter and main man behind the hugely successful TV talent show American Dreamz, he has good reason. Sally Kendoo (Mandy Moore) is a typical contestant in everything except her jaundiced view on life. She's all too aware "Any idiot can be on TV these days."
As Tweed and his staff gear up for the new series, he's bored beyond measure of the show's all too predictable nature. "Let's make this a show that even I'd watch," he challenges, before commanding his sycophantic producers (John Cho and Judy Greer), "Go get me some freaks." To spice things up he specifies that amongst their selections they include an Arab and a Jew.
American Dreamz feels rather disjointed and sluggish as it establishes all the various plot elements that weave together for its climax. There's the thread involving the Arab contestant Omer (Sam Golzari) which starts in an Afghanistan terrorist training camp and ends up in the wealthy Californian suburb of Orange County. There's Sally's desire to escape her smalltown Ohio background, her small-minded boyfriend William (Chris Klein) and make it big. "It wasn't going to work," she says of William, "every time he smiled, I wanted to hit him in the head with my shoe."
To these is added the whole strand involving the president. Dennis Quaid adopts the perfect deer in headlights expression as President Staton, a man who finds himself beginning a second term in office with still no clue about anything, preferring to stay in bed than work. Under pressure from his Cheyney like advisor (Willem Dafoe) and his happy pill-popping wife (Marcia Gay Harden) to boost his public profile - "We just can't have a president that stays in his pajamas all day" - he agrees to become a guest judge on American Dreamz.
Director Weitz, who has shown a good comic touch in the past with In Good Company and About A Boy, continues here, though the gentle pacing he brought to those films is less well suited here where a brasher, more dynamic touch would have served better. The strong cast perform consummately with Moore striking a neat blend of sugar and spice. There are a few cutting lines and sardonic moments, but overall its lack of incisive wit renders American Dreamz more like an opportunity missed than one exploited.
Kevin Murphy
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