Dave

Dave

What was originally conceived in its time to be a typical, light political satire and commonplace Hollywood valentine to the Clinton administration has now emerged as a film more relevant today than it ever was 17 years after its release.  The concept, of a sitting U.S. President who suffers a major stroke and for all intensive purposes is brain-dead, being replaced by a “regular guy” lookalike (whose day job involves running a temporary employment agency) who uses his goofball charm to win over the public before growing weary of being told what to do and tries to make things in this country right, suffers from a naïve, simplistic, fairy tale script that doesn’t think too deeply into the real life implications of such an event (i.e. how would Dave deal with an international crisis or handle U.S. foreign policy??  We just don’t know), but nonetheless is brought along by a winning performance by Kevin Kline in the dual lead role of the President and his replacement.  We don’t get to know much about the Prez himself, save for a somewhat chilling early scene where he tells lawmakers in a private meeting that he doesn’t want to veto a bill because it would make him “look like a prick”, but still encourages them to kill the bill anyway in Congress.  After his stroke, his “replacement”, Dave Kovic is persuaded by the draconian chief of staff (Frank Langella, in a performance that instantly brings to mind Rahn Emanual) to take over in order to keep the oval office out of the hands of the apparently incompetent Vice President (which makes us think of Joe Biden obviously) and maintain the status quo of the administration.  The fact that Dave ultimately takes charge (which includes firing Langella) and decides to bring out a two-bit accountant friend of his (Charles Grodin in his usual funny mode, albeit a far-fetched idea) to the White House in order to balance the national budget by cutting every bit of pork he can out of it in order to focus on things that are most important.  What’s fascinating and topical today is the idea that everyone we elect President (from Clinton to Obama) is always an Ivy League, overly educated, intellectual elite with no sense of what regular people need to make their lives better, which leads to the old adage of “politics as usual”, when in reality a better leader would be someone who is more of an “unqualified” regular person (Palin?) and would bring a common sense, cut the bullshit approach to the job and truly make things better.  As previously stated, the script (which was somehow Oscar nominated) pretty much cowers from being that daring in its approach, dumbing things down as to saying that the most important thing the budget should be used for is building homeless shelters (which happens to be the First Lady’s pet cause du jour), but at least director Ivan Reitman tackles the authenticity of the premise with a vengeance, bringing in as many real-life politico figures and commentators as possible for cameos, including Fred Barnes, Chris Dodd, Tom Harkin, Larry King, Mort Kondrake, Jay Leno, Chris Matthews, John McLaughlin, Bob Novak, Tip O’Neil, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Paul Simon, Alan Simpson, Ben Stein, and even anti-Semitic White House reporter Helen Thomas, but the show is nearly stolen with the cameo by Oliver Stone, doing hilarious self-parody as the only person in America convinced that a conspiracy is afloat.  In other roles, Sigourney Weaver does nice work as the First Lady who hates her husband but quickly becomes enchanted by his double; Kevin Dunn eschews his usual weasel persona as the Robert Gibbs-like press secretary who has a crisis of conscience; Ving Rhames as the head Secret Service agent in on the switch gets some priceless facial expressions; future multiple Oscar nominee Laura Linney looks hot as the nubile intern the President sleeps with before his episode; and Ben Kingsley comes in late into the film as the Vice President and wins both us (and Dave) over with limited screen time, as we realize the real reason he was kept out of the loop was due to being an upstanding, honest individual.  The idea of the President making his number one priority to be getting people jobs (which seems to be the opposite goal of the current administration and parallels Dave’s own temp agency position, at times begging business owners to give unemployed people a chance to work) results in Kline giving a heartfelt, moving speech on the subject which betters anything seen in the West Wing or The American President, and shows Kline to still be one of our most underrated actors.  Overall, a moving, funny film that stops just slightly short of being a comedy masterpiece…

8/10

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