MY FELLOW AMERICANS
A film review by Paul Miller
Copyright 1997 Paul Miller
My Fellow Americans is a movie that at first glance looks to have little substance (or a movie that we've all seen a million times), two lifetime rivals thrown together and then the fun begins. This is exactly what happened in this movie, but fortunately, they managed to do it in an interesting and funny way.
The movie starts with a quick (and I do mean quick) glance of two presidents Russell Kramer (Jack Lemmon) and Matt Douglas (James Garner). William Haney (Dan Aykroyd) and Ted Matthews (John Heard) are the new President and Vice President. There is a scandal that arises involving a kickback from a contractor and Haney is positive that he buried that years ago. He finds a scapegoat in Kramer and now everyone wants Kramer and Douglas dead.
This movie was exceptional for many reasons. One being that they found people (Lemmon and Garner) that have good chemisty together. They worked very well as a unit and they mirrored each other perfectly, one being a ladies man and one being the old man (I'll let you fiqure which is which). Also, they found people that know their parts as govenment officials well. It seemed to me that Garner played almost exactly the same role that he played in The Distinquished Gentleman (except then he was a Congressman). Experience counts for a lot!!
*** (out of four)
Paul's Scale
**** - Superior in every way *** - Excellent, far above average ** - Average, nothing special * - Terrible
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