My summary quote is a line from the movie and not the way I feel about the picture's message. Just had to get that out of the way. The conclusion you'll quickly come to after realizing the film's premise is that no way could this ever happen for real. An ex-President of the United States running for mayor of any small town USA is just not going to happen. It would be like an actor of say Gene Hackman's stature, an Oscar winner for "The French Connection" and "Unforgiven", showing up in a film like "Welcome to Mooseport". Well, wait a minute.
For a Saturday evening family movie night, this one isn't the worst choice you could make. If you're a dedicated network TV series fan, you'll probably catch a lot of your favorites from past shows here, like Ray Romano, Christine Baranski, Maura Tierney, and wonder of Wonder Years, the grown up Fred Savage still looking like the same wholesome kid he was way back when. But that's about as far as you'll get, with Romano doing his Everybody Loves character, and similar offerings from the rest of the players who are pretty much typecast from previous roles. Which is not to say that that's a bad thing if you're a fan of the principals.
Had this been made today though, think of the possibilities. You could have had a real life Joe the Plumber against a former President who took the whole hope and change thing just a bit too far. On the one hand you'd have a President who's approval index matched that of Monroe 'Eagle' Cole at the height of his Presidency, and on the other you'd have a candidate who actually knew how to fix things.
For a Saturday evening family movie night, this one isn't the worst choice you could make. If you're a dedicated network TV series fan, you'll probably catch a lot of your favorites from past shows here, like Ray Romano, Christine Baranski, Maura Tierney, and wonder of Wonder Years, the grown up Fred Savage still looking like the same wholesome kid he was way back when. But that's about as far as you'll get, with Romano doing his Everybody Loves character, and similar offerings from the rest of the players who are pretty much typecast from previous roles. Which is not to say that that's a bad thing if you're a fan of the principals.
Had this been made today though, think of the possibilities. You could have had a real life Joe the Plumber against a former President who took the whole hope and change thing just a bit too far. On the one hand you'd have a President who's approval index matched that of Monroe 'Eagle' Cole at the height of his Presidency, and on the other you'd have a candidate who actually knew how to fix things.