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FILM REVIEWS

'American President': Hail to a deft comedy
By Mike Clark
USA Today

Half the battle in devising slick holiday entertainment is dreaming up the premise, and The American President (*** out of four) has a beaut about the widowed dad at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Does this prez dare to "date" - or mercy, sleep in sin - when political pundits are poised to Heckle and Jeckle him to death?

President Andrew Shepherd is a centrist liberal in the fifth decade of the TV age, no time to be literally in bed with an environmental lobbyist who thinks he isn't liberal enough. Played with surprisingly light-comic and even presidential style by Michael Douglas, Shepherd is immediately smitten with an initially aggressive but soon flustered activist (Annette Bening, matching Douglas in star power). As someone wistfully notes here, the troubles that ensue never befell Woodrow Wilson when he was dating in office.

Aaron Sorkin's script alludes to Frank Capra, and its low point is an icky climactic speech right out of Capra's State of the Union. But Douglas, unlike Capra's skin-deep politicos, has to bomb Libya, suggesting that it's tougher than ever to concoct a Washington-lite movie that isn't fluff-headed. Though director Rob Reiner breezily captures the hustle-bustle of meetings and state dinners, his film's wholly reasonable liberal sentiments manage to come off as windy, score-settling appendages.

But if President has all the staying power of the Coolidge administration, a super cast injects it with Teddy Roosevelt vitality. The weightlessness that may dash its Oscar hopes is just what moviegoing families yearn for when digesting that Thanksgiving meal. (PG-13: Mild bedroom hijinks)

 

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