The American President (1995)
Directed by Rob Reiner
Widowed U.S. president Andrew Shepherd, one of the world's most powerful men, can have anything he wants -- and what he covets most is Sydney Ellen Wade, a Washington lobbyist. But Shepherd's attempts at courting her spark wild rumors and decimate his approval ratings.
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Often Shepherd's dialogue is witty and dry, like something out of a 1930s comedy along the lines of Sturges' "The Palm Beach Story."
The narrative follows an unwavering by-the-numbers strategy with an ending that echoes the "cornball" of Al Pacino's climactic Scent of a Woman speech.
Sorkin, who wrote A Few Good Men (which Reiner also directed), has sprinkled the screenplay with understated humor and sparkling dialogue, but the clever lines and amusing vignettes can't fully overcome the plot's essential mediocrity.
Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, who teamed up with Reiner on 1992's "A Few Good Men," throws obstacles in the way of true love�so many that the story sometimes has all the sex appeal of a Phil Gramm fund-raiser.
With a script by his "A Few Good Men" scribe Aaron Sorkin, this Castle Rock production is essentially a by-the-numbers Hollywood romance in the dopiest melodramatic tradition, unique only insofar as the lovesick lad is the U.S. president, Andrew Shepherd (Michael Douglas), a popular widower enjoying record approval ratings as campaign number two nears.
Aaron Sorkin (who collaborated with Reiner on the adaptation of his A Few Good Men) has written some sparkling dialogue reminiscent of the classic romantic comedies; this is a mature love story that is a joy to watch.
Director Rob Reiner and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, who previously teamed up on the 1992 adaptation of Sorkin's play A Few Good Men, have devised a very '90s concept, a love story for the age of spin control.
On this point, Reiner & Co. would have done well to take a page from Ivan Reitman's subtler and less partisan "Dave."
Perhaps because of the 2012 Presidential election season, Warner Bros. released two movies on Blu-ray dealing with the U.S. Presidency: "The American President," the Rob Reiner film with Michael Douglas and Annette Bening (1995), and the film under review here, Ivan Reitman's "Dave" (1993) with Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver.
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Just having Douglas and Bening starring in this fluffy comedy brings a touch of unreality to the proceedings, for both actors have been most impressive in distinctly hardball roles: Douglas most notably in "Wall Street" and Bening in "The Grifters."