Anatomy Of A Movie For 07.23.04: My Fellow Americans
Posted by Leonard Hayhurst on 07.23.2004
I think I have a chunk of purple mountains’ majesty crammed up my ass.
We’ve looked at some of my favorite movies, some cult classics, some legitimate classics, but today we look at a random movie. I closed my eyes, shoved my hand into my DVD rack and pulled out the 1996 presidential comedy My Fellow Americans. So, with little expectation and hype, let’s see what it has to offer.
THE STORY
Ohio Republican Russell Kramer (Jack Lemmon) and Indiana Democrat Matt Douglas (James Garner) are lifelong political enemies who trade a term apiece as President of the United States. Kramer’s former vice president, William Haney (Dan Aykroyd), is currently in office, but his administration is poised to get rocked by a kickback he took from a defense contractor as veep. Haney’s chief of staff (Bradley Whitford of the “West Wing”) suggests that with a few minor tweaks to history, they can hang the scandal on Kramer and let him take the fall. However, Democratic Party Chairman Joe Hollis (Wilford Brimely) gets wind of the cover-up and learns that the contractor in question is a friend of former President Douglas. Meanwhile, Kramer learns of the potential scandal from a sexy T.V. anchor (Sela Ward of “Sisters” and “Once and Again”). Both Kramer and Douglas go to talk to the contractor separately and he gets cold feet about the deal. He arranges to meet with both Presidents, but winds up dead before he can tell them what’s going on. Kramer and Douglas high tail it back to Russell’s house to regroup, but are confronted by shifty Secret Service operative Col. Tanner (Everett McGill) who orders them to hop a chopper to Camp David in order to talk things over with President Haney. They get wind that something is wrong and get the pilots to let them out…right before the helicopter explodes. Now fully aware that someone is trying to kill them, Kramer and Douglas trek from the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina to Kramer’s Presidential library outside of Cleveland to find evidence to take Haney down. When they find that evidence tampered with, they head back to Washington to talk with Haney’s chief of staff and get a confession out of him. After narrowly avoiding being assassinated by Tanner, the two confront Haney and get him to resign the office. However, there is more than meets the eye as Haney’s dim witted Vice President (John Heard) might not be as stupid as he appears…well maybe he is.
THE SCRIPT
A very interesting and unique premise, but the movie never quite figures out whether it’s an uplifting moral tale about honesty still in government or a lunatic farce. A film like this that drastically alters history is best served to fully engross itself in creating a bizarro world to inhabit. However, the world of the film is more convoluted and haphazardly thrown together than anything and that also helps to make the movie hard to pin down. For instance, what would a Secret Service sniper assigned to the White House be doing at a local gay pride parade in West Virginia? Even for a comedy there are bits of illogic that serves solely to create jokes that aren’t that funny in the first place. When Kramer and Douglas go to the car rental place there are one of two cars available. A Lexus and a Nissan. Naturally they take the Lexus, but Kramer hasn’t driven in over thirty years and winds up blowing out the tires so they have to take the Nissan. The joke here being to get two ex-Presidents in a tiny Nissan. Well, if that’s the point, then why not put them in the Nissan to begin with? Then you wouldn’t have the hilarity of Kramer’s inability to drive. However, if he can’t drive, then why isn’t Douglas behind the wheel who seems to be a little more with everyday life. Yeah, but that wouldn’t be funny. Going for the joke over logic is the downfall of many a comedy. I could see a scene where Kramer insists on driving since he signed for the car and doesn’t trust Douglas, but we don’t get one.
The script is very good at setting up the basic characters of Kramer and Douglas and putting them at odds against each other, but that dynamic starts to peter out toward the middle of the movie as it turns into a sort of “buddy cop” picture. I was going to complain about the movie coming off as a third rate Grumpy Old Men and while that idea does exist, the characters are different enough to set itself off from that movie a bit. Kramer is a penny-pinching wimp while Douglas is a brazen womanizer. Simple character types, but with the right actors, which they do have, the personalities are fleshed out enough to get the characters over. The petty bickering is unneeded, but the edge that Kramer and Douglas have make for some good chemistry that they lose after they starting to work more closely together.
The script is at it’s best when it examines the mundane and personal reflections of the Presidential office, such as when Kramer and Douglas share their made up words to “Hail to the Chief” and who their favorite people they met were. There are also a few lines that deal with the fundamental differences between Republicans and Democrats that are sorrowfully never expanded upon. Douglas wants to borrow five dollars for a cheeseburger and Kramer points out that only a Democrat would ask for five bucks when all he really needs is a $1.55. There are several themes in the script that are brought up, but never dealt with. A waiter in a restaurant who doesn’t recognize him calls Kramer an “old man” and he begins to think that maybe he is. Yet, later in the movie when the pair is leading a tour of the White House Kramer comments, “the old people are slowing us up.”
Equally as wasted as some of the more intriguing themes are the supporting characters who serve only as plot devices to keep the story moving around Kramer and Douglas.
The only supporting characters that are used well, and the best section of the flick, are the poor hick family who take the wandering Presidents in. It’s here that the movie really strikes the right tone between comedy and social commentary based on this serving as the turning point of the movie. It’s only after their conflict with the family that Kramer and Douglas begin to think less of saving their own necks and more about taking Haney down for the good of the American people.
Now for a little screenwriting 101 before moving on. When objects are introduced into the story, make sure those objects payoff in the end in meaningful ways. In My Fellow Americans, Douglas receives a compass from an illegal immigrant while Kramer gets a friendship necklace from a gay man during the parade. Later when the rooftop snipers are setting up to shoot them, one sees the necklace in Kramer’s back pocket and realizes that they are the real President’s and takes out Tanner to save their lives. Physical payoff. At the end when Douglas is being driven home, he pulls out the compass and it points toward the White House as he passes by. Almost a literal ‘moral compass’ that encourages Douglas to get with Kramer and run for president again. Symbolic payoff. Well done in both parts.
THE ACTING
I have never seen a bad performance out of either James Garner or Jack Lemmon, but this is as close as you will probably get. Lemmon is doing George Bush with a bit of his Grumpy Old Men character thrown in while Garner is doing Lyndon Johnson with shades of an exasperated Jim Rockford. Mostly, Garner comes off better of the two as he appears to accept the movie for what it is and tries to have fun with parts of it. Lemmon seems to be sleep walking while occasionally shifting into serious actor mode like he’s doing Save the Tiger or something, such as his speech in the Oval Office to Haney. One of the few extras on the DVD I have is a blooper reel. Most of the bloopers are Lemmon blowing his lines and cracking up while Garner yells at him for being unprofessional. The trick to Garner’s acting is that he comes off so smooth and natural that you can’t even tell he’s acting. Lemmon, on the other hand, is a very old school actor who you can tell is playing a part. Translation: when both choose to dog it, Garner is going to come across better due to his more likable and easy going screen presence. I think Garner is one of our most underrated actors due to the fact that he always seems to be playing himself, but he’s about the only bright spot and the only actor who breaks out of the one dimensional character types in the movie. He carries the whole thing on his shoulders.
This isn’t to say that the rest of the cast is bad, they simply don’t have anything to do. Aykroyd is totally wasted as President Haney. His on camera time is maybe twenty minutes and he’s never given any bits of true business or jokes to work with. Aykroyd has shown on “Saturday Night Live” that he can be quite adept at political humor and improvisation, but they never really give him a chance to show what he can do. Aykroyd pretty much falls into the same traps as Lemmon and Garner by basing his performance on a toned down version of his old Jimmy Carter impression. Brimely, Whitford and Ward’s parts basically add up to extended cameos and, as mentioned above, they only seem to exist to drive the plot forward. Most criminally misused is Lauren Bacall as Kramer’s wife, who winds up getting less screen time than Brimely. Bacall is engaging in her few scenes as a tough old politician’s wife who seems to be the real power behind the throne. Too bad she gets thrown away after the President’s cross-country epic begins.
Also as mentioned above, the only supporting characters to really have some meat to work with is the hick family headed up by Connie Ray. Forget stereotyping, if you need a country bumpkin with a heart of gold and more brains than she appears to have, call Connie Ray. Ray got her acting break as the star of “The Torkelsons” which morphed into “Almost Home.” If you’ve seen either of those shows, you know what I’m talking about.
DIRECTION/CINEMATOGRAPHY
Director Peter Segal has made a handful of decent comedies over the years including Anger Management, Tommy Boy, Naked Gun 33 1/3 and The Nutty Professor 2. After seeing those movies, Segal’s strength seems to rest on the skill of his actors and the quality of his scripts. While he certainly has the cast to rely on, the script sinks him and makes his work seem pretty pedestrian. Lack of close-ups and dynamic shots also hurt him. Most scenes are done in what is known as a two shot (medium shot where you can usually get two people on the screen). In a movie that is so entrenched with Americana and has two ex-Presidents traveling across the country, Segal really misses the opportunity to fit in some sweeping landscapes and natural beauty that could have punched up proceedings. I have no idea what state they are in until it’s mentioned. West Virginia is the mountain state and very picturesque, but we don’t get one single landscape shot while they’re there. Segal has plenty of traveling montages to fit some creative shots into, but he just lets them pass him by.
The action sequences are pretty well shot as you can clearly keep track of events and the presentation really helps to punch things up. The Jack in the Box head crashing through the car windshield and the duo jumping off the train have a little zing due to the staging and the suddenness of the action.
There’s also a pretty jarring effect I noticed through the wonders of DVD. During a chase scene with the presidents on horseback, it appears that Garner and Lemmon’s heads were pasted on the bodies of stuntman. It’s actually pretty well done with how the sequence is cut and shot as to not overly draw attention to it or let you stare at it for long. I can see why they might want to do this with Lemmon, but Garner is a master horseman and has made dozens of Westerns in his career.
SOUNDTRACK
The soundtrack is eclectic, ranging from standard patriotic music to classic rock to the “Macarena.” I think the idea was to give a cross section of America through the music, but songs are just jammed in anywhere and aren’t really that poignant for the scenes they play over. “Little Pink Houses” actually makes for a fitting closing theme and an early sequence of Kramer and Douglas traipsing through the woods to “Bad Moon on the Rise” is accurately foreshadowing. But songs like “Funkytown” and “All You Ever Do is Bring Me Down,” while showing a nice mix of musical heritage, just play over scenes with no rhyme or reason. I also have to mention the brilliant dramatic reading that John Heard does of the lyrics to “Muskrat Love” at a funeral. Hysterical stuff based on his deadpan delivery.
THAT’S A WRAP
There are some funny moments and good segments in the movie, but the script overall comes off as very amateurish and that dooms it more than anything. Garner and Lemmon are engaging, but uneven overall while the rest of the cast should have been much better utilized. It’s a light comedy that never finds its voice, either as farce, social satire or even a touching drama about American values. It can be a fun movie, but viewing it from a purely analytical standpoint it really falls apart under it’s own weight.
