American Dreamz
Director: Paul Weitz
With: Hugh Grant, Mandy Moore
Runtime: 107 min
It could have been so different. With a great comedy cast and an interesting premise, American Dreamz seemed quite promising, which makes it all the more galling that it proved to be such artless tat. American Dreamz is a reality T.V talent show, obviously parodying American Idol. Its host (Hugh Grant, doing an unflattering impersonation of Simon Cowell) is bored of the format and wants new ‘freak’ contestants. Chief among these are Mandy Moore’s manipulative cow, destined to be Hugh Grant’s latest unconvincing love interest. Also selected is Omer, an unwilling terrorist from an Afghan camp, planted in the competition in order to blow up the President (Quaid) who is the celebrity judge in the competition final. With hilarious consequences. Of course.
It is a brave and imaginative concept, attempting a social commentary attacking both high politics and mass entertainment in one short movie. It is not the premise that I have any problem with, it is the execution. The film fails utterly, and the fault lies almost entirely with Paul Weitz. The man behind About A Boy and American Pie has inflicted upon us a film so monumentally awful that I will forever regret the precious time and money that I wasted on it. For a satirical romantic comedy, it is unsuccessful on every count. The romance is a tacked-on afterthought, almost coincidental to the plot. The satire is ham-fisted and artless.
Most criminally for a comedy however, is that it just isn’t funny. In the slightest. I laughed properly once, and I remain unconvinced that it was a deliberate joke. The rest of the ‘humour’ barely made me grimace. It is cheap and puerile comedy, and totally unpalatable.
While Hugh Grant was once in danger of being type-cast as the bumbling romantic hero, he has settled into a new rut, and now only plays the anti-hero, in this case a crass, sleazy, predatory cad. Normally this is fine, because he does it very well, and is always good value, but not when he plays a character so poorly created and developed that he is nothing more than a caricature. The same is true for every other character in this pathetic trash. The characters are weak and underdeveloped. Regardless of how talented your cast is, such crass, lazy stereotyping undermines any semblance of talent. Not a good thing for Mandy Moore.
I’ve desperately searched for a bright spot. At a push I would congratulate Willem Dafoe for his performance as the President’s aide. The original idea is also imaginative, and somewhere in here there might be a good film, if handled in a completely different fashion. Some of the subject matter is fairly controversial, and people will be critical of it for this, but there is no need for outrage on moral grounds. You don’t need to search that hard. This is the cheapest comedy around, and I feel ashamed now for laughing at it that one time.
