American Dreamz a Nightmare for Weitz

The day after winning reelection, popular U.S. President Joe Staton (Dennis Quaid) does something he hasn’t bothered to do in four years of service to his country: He reads the newspaper. His manipulative Chief of Staff (Willem Dafoe) is horrified, especially after his boss disappears inside his White House residence devouring paper after paper wearing only his pajamas. Soon Staton’s once stratospheric approval rating is in the gutter. With few options open to him the President’s aid and advisor decides to book him as a guest judge on the most popular television show in the world, the reality singing competition program American Dreamz.

The host of the show is a nasty, selfish Brit named Martin Tweed (Hugh Grant). He’s tired of the same boring guests year after year so he orders his producers Accordo (Judy Greer) and Ittles (John Cho) to find him something different for the new season. “Bring me some freaks,” he says bluntly, and gleefully his two little peons scurry off to do just that.

What they find are a crop of dubiously talented youngsters hungry for stardom. They’re led by a scheming Southern blonde bombshell named Sally Kendoo (Mandy Moore) who’s not above pretending to love and adore her clueless G.I. boyfriend William Williams (Chris Klein, doing his dopy “American Pie” and “Election” routine once again) just because she knows doing so makes for good television. Her chief competition comes from recent Afghani immigrant (and would-be terrorist) Omer (Sam Golzari) who would much rather sing and dance than blow himself – and the President – up on live television.

“American Dreamz,” the new comedy from “About a Boy” and “In Good Company” writer-director Paul Weitz, should be a sensation. Everything this movie touches, from “American Idol” to George W. Bush, is ripe for satire and skewering. Like “Wag the Dog,” “Citizen Ruth” or “Network” before it, this whole thing should be a tour-de-farce, a brilliant document refusing to take prisoners no matter which side of the political spectrum a person happens to reside.

Unfortunately, “American Dreamz” is none of the above. If anything, the only constant thing it does have is an odor of moribund futility that’s distinctly underwhelming. It is as if the film thinks it is smarter and more biting than it actually is, as if Weitz knew he had hit upon a marvelously brilliant idea and then forgot to write a movie to go along with it. On any given night the real “American Idol” is a far more surreal and engaging circus than the reality show at the center of this, while both Bush and Cheney do a much better job of inadvertently lampooning their own personas in real life then the filmmaker does here.

And yet, with a cast this good the picture is nowhere near a total loss. Grant is always at his best when playing a priggish cad and aping Simon Cowell suits him brilliantly. Dafoe is even better, his toothy Cheney-like grin both comical and terrifying all at the same time. Best of all is Moore, the riotously talented pop star doing such a grand Kelly-Clarkson-meets-Carrie-Underwood-crossed-with-Eve-Harrington impersonation it almost has to be seen to be believed.

The other actors don’t fare near as well. Jennifer Coolidge (as Sally’s hirsute mother) and Seth Meyers (as her cold-blooded agent) have  couple of amusing bits, as do both Greer and Cho, but none grand enough to make them memorable. It is Quaid, however, who is wasted most completely, the actor vanishing for so long during the second act a person could almost be forgiven for forgetting he was in the thing at all.

It all culminates in a climactic showdown during the reality show’s frivolous final that’s so terribly staged and written I nearly slapped my forehead in disbelief. Weitz gets it all horribly wrong, everything happening during this sequence seemingly frantic for the sake of being frantic, manic because manic is funny, over-the-top because subtlety is too hard for audiences to comprehend.

This is hogwash, of course, and what’s worse is the writer-director knows it. Both “In Good Company” and “About a Boy” were about as knowing and acerbic as comedies can get, and even “American Pie” had more wit than this one does. Shame, really, because the pieces are certainly in place for a great satire that would make Robert Altman or Paddy Chayefsky proud. Sadly, in the end, the best this can do is generate a smile or two, nothing more, making “American Dreamz” a sadly disappointing entertainment nightmare destined for the DVD dustbin.