The aide asks if he should have a pollster “put together some numbers.” However, that is exactly the pressure the President is fighting against: the need to balance every action by how it will all come together. Shepherd gets Wade’s number from the FBI, picks up the phone and calls her – who cannot believe that it is really the President, because she has just moved in with her sister and has no phone of her own.
She hangs up. He calls back. Convinced she is talking to a person who is pulling a practical joke, she compliments him on his “great - .” Roger Ebert even admitted, “Because both Douglas and Bening are believable in their roles, and because the power and bureaucracy of the White House already have been credibly established in the opening scenes, this moment works not as sit-com but as explosive comedy.” We all know that comedy relieves tension and by making the protagonists both realistic and sympathetic, and then straightening the huge wall of the modern presidency between them, the movie makes real chances: We care, and find ourselves caring throughout the film, whether they will be happy together.
As hilarious as this film is, most of the comedy is from President Shepherd having difficulties with simple matters in ordinary procedures. He doesn't want to ask his staff to do it for him, like getting Sydney flowers and finding the best set of bouquets. Sydney is a very serious lobbyist, who is told by her boss, played by John Mahoney, "The time it will take you to go from presidential girlfriend to cocktail party joke can be measured on an egg timer."
Three elements make you stay on the edge of your seat throughout the movie. The first is the personal relationship between Shepherd and Wade. Second is the lobbyist job for the environmental group that needs the votes that will pass the fuel bill. Finally, the White House tension, where President Shepherd, who is a liberal, is up against a very crucial election-year opponent from the conservative, played by another great actor, Richard Dreyfuss, and is trying to get a very serious crime bill passed.
The supporting cast with Douglas and Bening is just phenomenal: one of the best actors for his time, Martin Sheen, is the President's right-hand man, the beloved Michael J. Fox is his ideological conscience, Anna Deavere Smith is his press secretary, and David Paymar is a pollster (His name, Kodak, must hint at the snapshots of the national mood, similar to how Shepherd is suggestive name for a President). Shawna Waldron plays the President's pre-teen daughter, and this role is just as amazing as everyone else's role that was written. Among the number the emotions that "The American President" looks at, one of the best is the simple affection for the Presidency.
Watching "The American President," you can feel the respect for all of the work that went into making this, which is how it re-created the physical world of the White House, the smart dialogue, and the manipulation of the romance to pull your heartstrings. It is also a film to look at the liberal political point of view, and that is a lot to put into it. This is one of the most entertaining films, and hands-down, one of the best films of 1995.
Ebert noted in his review, “Douglas has specialized recently in more overtly sexual roles, as in "Disclosure," where he seemed like the hapless instrument of the plot. Here he seems so much more three-dimensional, more vulnerable, smarter, more likable. And Bening is simply luminous; I had hoped to conduct my career as a film critic without ever once writing that a smile "illuminates the screen," but something very like that happens here. Looking around, I noticed the audience smiling back.”
A little note to mention, which I don't think anyone will mind, "The American President" actually led to Martin Sheen staring in the popular sitcom, "The West Wing." Since Sheen had worked with Aaron Sorkin, who Sheen says is one of the best writers he has ever worked with, and has come to appreciate him as frankly the best, Sorkin called Sheen and asked, "Would you be interested in playing this two scene part in this new pilot?" Sheen said he was, and so he was given the script. Once he read it, he called Sorkin back and said, "Absolutely." Sorkin then informed Sheen, "You can't just do the pilot, you have to make a commitment to do the series." When Sheen asked what was in that commitment, Sorkin told him, "Well, we just want you to appear at least once a month, so every fourth episode." Sheen was fine with that, but the deal was that he couldn't play another President in anything else, to which he replied, "How often is that going to happen?" Now that is a whole different topic to talk about, but all I can say is, this is a film to watch during President's Day.
Among the number of emotions that “The American President” shows, one of the best is simple love for the Presidency.
Ebert mentioned this in his review: “When I was growing up, "thepresidentoftheUnitedStates" was one word, said reverently, and embodied great power and virtue. Now the title is like the butt of a joke; both parties have lessened the office by their potshots at its occupants. Reiner suggests the moral weight of the presidency while at the same time incorporating much of the inside information we now have about the way the White House functions.”
It is hard to make a good love story, harder to make a good comedy and harder still to make a smart film about politics. Rob Reiner happily did all three, and it’s great entertainment – one of those films, like “Forrest Gump” or “Apollo 13,” that briefly brings the audience together in a reprise of the American dream.
My dad is in love with this movie, and I cannot blame him. He especially likes the final speech at the end, when Michael Douglas concludes by saying, “I am Andrew Shepherd, and I am the President.” That line is one of the best lines I have ever heard Michael Douglas say, and I believe this is the first movie I saw of his. Definitely check it out.
Stay tuned for this Friday for the last entry in the Black History Month film reviews.
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