Dick (1999) ***1/2 out of *****
Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Michelle Williams, Dan Hedaya, Will Ferrell, Bruce McCulloch, Teri Garr, Dave Foley, Jim Breuer, Ana Gasteyer, Harry Shearer, Saul Rubinek, Devon Gummersall, Ted McGinley, Ryan Reynolds, G.D. Spradlin, French Stewart Written by: Andrew Fleming and Sheryl Longin Directed by: Andrew Fleming Running Time: 100 minutes Date Reviewed: August 8, 1999
While staying in the Watergate Hotel in Washington DC, two dim-witted 15 year olds (Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams) inadvertently expose the Watergate break in. The next day, after wandering off from a White House tour, they end up meeting Richard Nixon, becoming official White House dog walkers and secret youth advisors, and unknowingly involving themselves in almost every aspect of the downfall of a President.
Let me first give some credit to writer/director Andrew Fleming. His previous two films (Threesome, The Craft) are two of my least favorite movies ever, and I was quite harsh on Fleming in my reviews. So going into this film I was not expecting much at all in terms of entertainment. Surprisingly, Dick turns out to be really funny. There are the obvious double meaning jokes pertaining to the film's titular character, but not as many as you'd think... three or four at the most, I believe. The rest of the film's comedy is fairly intelligent, and hardly any of it misses it's mark. Even the drug humor is good-natured.
Let me now give credit to the cast. Mostly comprised of "Saturday Night Live" and "The Kids in the Hall" alumni, everyone is dead on target. Dan Hedaya plays Nixon, and he's great without making the character too much of a cartoon (on a slightly interesting side note, Hedaya was also in the cast of Oliver Stone's Nixon). The lead actresses are good at conveying their character's rampant stupidity while managing to be quite sexy as well. Best of all though are Will Ferrell and Bruce McCulloch as a bickering Woodward and Bernstein (the Washington Post reporters who broke the Watergate story). They appear in the film's opening scene, and then reappear in the film's final act basically dominating the rest of the film. These scenes are a highly amusing parody of those two journalists, especially if you've seen movies like All the President's Men.
What makes this film work given it's subject matter is it's presentation. Of course saying that two teens were directly involved in the biggest political scandal this nation has even seen is absurd, but the movie knows this and doesn't try to be anything else BUT absurd. The jokes are humorous and manage to succeed to two different levels. Those of you who don't know anything about the Watergate scandal will enjoy it on the comedic level of a silly movie, and those of you with knowledge of the events will enjoy it as a sly political satire. For example, knowing that there was an 18 and a half minute gap in one of Nixon's secret recordings will help you to enjoy a certain scene even more, but the scene is also funny standing alone.
Of course you know Fleming must be delighted at the use of the film's title in the vocabulary of moviegoers around the country. I now have to refer to the film as "that comedy about Nixon with the two girls in it" to avoid making the buffoonish statements I've been making like "Call the theater and confirm three for Dick, please". John Waters tried to do this with last year's Pecker... but since no one sees John Waters' movies or even talks about them, it failed. [PG-13]
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