MOVIE REVIEW: AMERICAN DREAMZ
'Saturday Night Live' does good political satire. 'The Daily Show' does good political satire. Hell, even 'South Park' does good political satire. However, when you make a movie that, at first glance looks serious, but then is supposed to be a mockery, it only makes people who actually like clever political satire feel cheated.
All you need to know about this movie in a nutshell:
'American Dreamz' (the show within the movie) = 'American Idol' inspired.
Hugh Grants character = Simon Cowel inspired (only hotter).
Omer = Suicide bomber sent to America to assassinate the President of the United States.
The best parts of the movie:
-Omer. Besides his motive he is very likable, which makes you root for him to chicken out and not go forth with the assassination. My only problem was that he moves in with his relatives in California, meanwhile the PRESIDENT, who Omer was sent to kill, lives in Washington. Later on, the vast distance in location astonishingly comes together when Omer gets discovered by 'American Dreamz' producers and gets sent to perform on the show, which coincidently the President is going to be a guest judge on.
-Omer's gay "divo" cousin who was the one who originally wanted to be on 'American Dreamz.' His appearance in the movie was the only thing that brought out laughter in me.
-Hugh Grant, even if he's playing yet another pretentious asshole.
The worst parts of the movie (besides everything):
-Every attempted joke.
-The movie revolves around so many characters that there was no time to develop them, which made my head spin! Usually the purpose most movies with ensemble casts have is to clash them in the end for a big bang (a la 'Crash'), but 'American Dreamz' opted to skip the big bang and go with more of a "poof"... and just like that, it was gone.
-The pathetic mockery of Bush. This should solely be Will Farrel's job, because putting a serious actor like Dennis Quaid in that role will only mislead audience members (is he being serious? is this a mockery? say what?). Sometimes he was channeling Bush, and other times he was just being Dennis Quaid with a Texan accent (and boy is he good at it!). If you're going to try and mock Bush, or any other real person for that matter, go full force or not at all.
-Mandy Moore. I kept cringing every time she did one of her typical Mandy Moore facial expressions (you know what I'm talking about). She's the same person in every role. (another motto to add onto my list of mottos: Once you've seen Mandy Moore in one role, you've seen her in all.)
If you prefer your IQ to lower, go see this movie, if you treasure your knowledge you'd stay away.
