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American
Idle AMERICAN DREAMZ: Written, produced and directed by Paul Weitz. Also produced by Rodney Liber, Andrew Miano. Cinematography, Robert Elswit. Music, Stephen Trask. Starring Hugh Grant, Mandy Moore, Sam Golzari, Dennis Quaid, Marcia Gay Harden, Willem Dafoe and Chris Klein. Universal Pictures, 2006. PG-13. 107 minutes.
There is nothing subtle about writer-director Paul Weitz's new film, which aims to send up a gutsy, broad handful of American culture — in particular, the presidency, the War on Terrah and the ongoing obsession with reality TV, particularly that one show on which people sing their hearts out. No, everything here is painted in broad strokes: The deep orange tan and glossy smile of Sally Kendoo (Mandy Moore), a corn-fed all-American "American Dreamz" contestant; the love would-be terrorist Omer (Sam Golzari) has for show tunes; the good ol' boy simplicity of President Staton (Dennis Quaid), who used to drink too much and thinks his mom only wanted him to run for office to prove to his ex-prez dad that any idiot could win. With Willem Dafoe doing a creepily passable Dick Cheney and Hugh Grant in lovable self-loathing mode as "Dreamz" host Martin Tweed, Weitz's movie is overloaded with talented actors at the mercy of a sluggish screenplay that goes for the obvious more often than the biting or humorous. The day after being re-elected, President Staton wakes up and decides to read the paper. Shock of shocks, there's stuff in there he didn't know about! Time to stay in and read. For weeks. Halfway around the world, Omer is failing miserably at terrorist camp. His superiors send him off to California as a sleeper agent, mostly to get him out of their hair. And in small-town Ohio, Sally Kendoo is screaming with excitement at the news she's been picked to be on "American Dreamz," a show with a host so bitterly cynical he can't bear to be in a relationship that makes him want to be a better person. Tweed isn't interested in being a better person. He's interested in getting some "freaks" on his show so it will be more fun for him — which is why he gets manipulative Sally, with her devoted veteran boyfriend tagging along; Sholem (Adam Busch), an Orthodox Jewish rapper; and Omer, who was the only one home when the "Dreamz" staff came for his flamboyant cousin Iqbal (Tony Yalda), who actually wanted to be on the show and in whose glittery basement studio Omer had been practicing his moves. Weitz has crafted some winning scenes, including Sally and Tweed's awkward first meeting, Omer's hysterical performance and Tweed's vicious send-offs to failed contestants. The director's sympathy for his characters, though vaguely admirable, is frustrating; nearly everyone in American Dreamz is trying their darndest to attain those "dreamz with a z," as Moore sings. But this even-handedness pulls the teeth from Weitz's satire. Instead of a piercing look at a country that's more into voting for the next "American Idol" than for the American president, we get a slightly twisted Cinderella story with an other-folks-are-people-too message at its heart. A few contrivances get Omer, Sally and President Staton — and a few other key characters — to the "Dreamz" finals, by which point it's clear that the movie's narrative drive relies heavily on the same thing it's supposedly sending up — our fascination with other people's fluffy pop dreams. We might be concerned about the bomb Omer's been assigned to detonate on the show, but he's clearly too nice a guy to want to kill anyone, and his nerve-wracked speech before going on stage sums up everything Weitz's movie has to say about America. So there's not much left but, as David Wildman wrote in Boston's Weekly Dig, "an attempt to draw us into the suspense of finding out who the big winner is going to be." And we don't even get to vote.
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