Here's what the Times says today about it...
'Dreamz' feels like a nightmare
By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic
Published April 20, 2006
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American Dreamz is a satire so toothless that it barely registers as a caricature. The Daily Show would surely jab the Bush administration, terrorism and the No. 1 show on television, American Idol, more sharply in two minutes than Paul Weitz manages in a feature-length film.
This feels like an idea rushed into production without much thought and certainly without a second draft. The characters are just elemental enough for viewers to think: “Oh, Hugh Grant’s behaving like Simon Cowell, and Dennis Quaid kind of acts like President Bush.” But that’s the extent of Weitz’s ambition; he sets up targets without ever knocking them down, without even taking a clear shot at anything.
Grant plays Martin Tweed, producer-host of the top-rated American Dreamz, which chooses the next pop music star. The resemblance to Cowell is unmistakable, yet Martin isn’t as caustic as the real thing.
A new season is about to begin and Martin wants new faces and stories to exploit. Among them are scheming Sally Kendoo (Mandy Moore), Hasidic hip-hopper (Adam Busch) and Omer (Sam Golzari), a sleeper cell terrorist and Broadway show tunes fan mistakenly chosen over his cousin.
American Dreamz could skewer contemporary music, but Stephen Trask’s original songs don’t explore the vapidity of modern pop composition. There isn’t a single laugh among the lyrics. We only get a smidgen of Martin/Simon’s insulting criticism and performances since Weitz has more to push around his plate.
Meanwhile, President Staton (Quaid) awakens one morning and decides to read a newspaper, shocking his vice president (Willem Dafoe), who looks like Dick Cheney and pulls strings like Karl Rove. Imagine a president wishing to be informed by sources other than his staff through an earpiece.
The president joins the season finale of American Dreamz as a guest judge. There’s absolutely no reason why the story lines should converge except Weitz wants them to. Then he doesn’t know what to do with the mix.
What he settles upon is combining Omer’s suicide bombing mission and his chance to meet the president and make a deadly statement on national television. However, Omer is a terrorist with a conscience. Or maybe he just wants to win the competition. Either way, it isn’t his finger ending up on the detonator.
Who has the bomb is the closest thing to a satirical statement in the movie, yet it seems tastelessly incomplete since nothing else has been as bold.
Why not have the contestants band together in a terrorist-style takeover of the show? Or make the president’s vote a life or death matter? Or play up the competition between the Arab and Jewish finalists, perhaps even making them accomplices?
Because Weitz never planned beyond, his premise begs another question: Why even make this movie?
-- Steve Persall can be reached at (727) 893-8365 or persall@sptimes.com.
American Dreamz
Grade: F
Director: Paul Weitz
Cast: Hugh Grant, Mandy Moore, Dennis Quaid, Sam Golzari, Marcia Gay Harden, Willem Dafoe, Chris Klein, Jennifer Coolidge
Screenplay: Paul Weitz
Rating: PG-13; profanity, brief sexual situations
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