"That's a nice-a donut."
Saturday, July 09, 2005
Welcome to Mooseport (2004)
Welcome to Mooseport feels like a feature-length sitcom, where all that is missing is a laugh track, an extra-special surprise guest star, a hit theme song, and the quirky next-door neighbor who pops in at unexpected moments. Unfortunately, it doesn't have any of those things. This is a very bland movie.
Monroe "The Eagle" Cole (Gene Hackman) is a very popular ex-President with an absurd 85% approval rating. His two terms are up, and he is divorced, so he retires to a small town in Maine. Naturally, Mooseport is without a mostly ceremonial mayor so of course the town leaders encourage Monroe to take the position. His advisors (including Marcia Gay Harden) don't think it's a good idea, but he accepts anyway. Unbeknownst to them, the local hardware store owner, Handy Harrison (Ray Romano) has filed for the job since he thought nobody else had and that it was his duty. This inevitably leads to a mayoral race, which eventually receives national attention. Monroe doesn't quite help matters when he flirts with Handy's longtime girlfriend (Maura Tierney) and takes her out to dinner. This leads to an all-out war, including two televised debates, and the former President's approval rating hanging in the balance.
The movie could have been a very inspired farce, but instead nearly everything about it is subpar - just like most sitcoms nowadays. The main problem was that I could never figure out who the movie wanted me to root for: David (Handy) or Goliath (Monroe)? In the first portion of the film, Monroe is definitely the lead character, and he is sympathetic and generally likeable (albeit a politician). Later, Handy gets more screen time and I guess we're supposed to feel sympathetic for him too. But I didn't, because he comes off as a dimwit, a fool, and generally a very boring man who I hoped that Monroe would physically beat up. But popular ex-Presidents don't do things like that, so we are subjected to the typical happy Hollywood ending that is hand fed to the audience. In the end, I'm not sure it mattered who we were supposed to root for, but I really didn't care.
To make matters worse, the supporting characters in the movie are very shallow and uninteresting. Perhaps director Donald Petrie should have been placed more focus on the townspeople, instead we get a lame subplot with the President's ex-wife (Christine Baranski), who is incredibly annoying and useless. And Fred Savage continues his career downfall by playing a brown nosing doofus on the former President's staff.
The movie takes a tired page from The Simpsons when, during a golf match between Monroe and Handy, there is found to be a strong similarity on the links between Monroe and C. Montgomery Burns. But, this leads into the funniest and best sequence in the movie. A quickly edited montage shows that Monroe did not in fact nab a 7 on the first hole, but actually a 15 - and all of them are replayed in humorous fashion. There isn't too much else to laugh about in this comedy, although Hackman gives his usual fine performance.
Although Welcome to Mooseport feels like a long sitcom, with the way it was written, it actually probably would have been best as a short 10-minute skit. Of course, a different actor in the role of Handy also might have helped. Everyone most definitely does not love Raymond… err, I mean Mooseport.
The Verdict: C-.
Michael Bentley 8:48 AM
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