MY FELLOW AMERICANS
A film review by Michael John Legeros
Copyright 1996 Michael John Legeros
(WB) Directed by Peter Segal Written by E. Jack Kaplan, Richard Chapman, and Peter Tolan Cast Jack Lemmon, James Garner, Dan Aykroyd, John Heard, Sela Ward, Wilford Brimley, Everett McGill, Lauren Bacall MPAA Rating "PG-13" Running Time 101 minutes Reviewed at Six Forks Station Cinemas, Raleigh, NC (07DEC96)
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This is crap, but, honestly, what older American audience is going to be able to resist seeing Jack Lemmon and James Garner as bicker- ing ex-Presidents? Especially when their supporting players in- clude Dan Aykroyd as the current Commander in Chief, Lauren Bacall as a former First Lady, and John Heard as the Dan Quayle-ish Vice President. Yup, you're talkin' pre-sold property here and, for Warner Brothers, the perfect fit into their now-ritual GRUMPY OLD MEN holiday slot. For the non-discriminating viewer, MY FELLOW AMERICANS is fine. The raw star power alone will have audiences applauding this atrocious political- thriller road-comedy. (They did in mine, heaven help us.)
For the rest of us, the movie is immediately tiresome. The tone is terrible and the banter is worse. Forget wit-- Lemmon and Garner merely exchange profanities through most of the movie. (Has anyone counted the number of First Penis references?) Sure, some of the bits are absurdly funny, including a men's room Macarena joke, the appearance of an Elvis impersonator on a trainload of Tarheels, and an All Dorothy Marching Band performing "Over the Rainbow" at a gay men's march. The get there from here, though, you have to submit to one of the most offensively overbearing musical scores of all time. Judas Priest, is there a single moment of silence in this film? Even the dialogue gets drowned out. What a waste.
Grade: D+
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Mike Legeros - Raleigh, NC, USA, Earth legeros@pagesz.net (h) - legeros@unx.sas.com (w) I'm also on the Web! http://www.pagesz.net/~legeros/
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