Dick Review
by MR JONATHAN RICHARDS (Movie_Critic AT prodigy DOT com)August 12th, 1999
MOVIES Jonathan Richards, Santa Fe REPORTER
INFLATION
DICK
Directed by Andrew Fleming
Screenplay by Fleming & Sheryl Longin
With Kirsten Dunst, Michelle Williams
Jean Cocteau PG-13 95 min
"Dick" is a very funny 95-cent idea diluted by inflation to a buck and a half. There are good jokes and performances, but it's essentially sketch humor stretched out to fill feature requirements. The goodwill purchased by the early laughs goes a long way toward carrying the flat stretches. Eventually, though, there's no avoiding the fact that things have run aground. There's a noticeable gap in amusement, and it extends beyond the legendary 18-1/2 minutes. Despite the fact that the central characters are a couple of teenage girls, the appeal of "Dick" will be primarily to those old enough to appreciate the minutia of Watergate trivia; if plumbers, duct tape, and Rosemary Woods and the 18-1/2 minute gap mean nothing to you, parts of this movie will be as impenetrable as puns in Chinese.
Betsy (Kirsten Dunst) and Arlene (Michelle Williams) are teenyboppers in Washington DC with a serious thing for Bobby Sherman (if you're under thirty-five I'm already losing you.) When they sneak out of Arlene's Watergate apartment at midnight to post a letter to the pop idol's fan club, they tape a door to the building's garage for purposes of re-entry. At the same time a third-rate burglary is in progress at the Democratic National Committee offices upstairs. When a security guard finds the taped lock he calls the cops, and sets in motion the irresistible tide of events that will eventually sweep Richard M. Nixon from office.
The girls get separated from their class on a White House tour, meet the President and his minions, and wind up with a gig as official dogwalkers for the mutt everyone insists on calling Checkers. From this vantage point they have a chance to observe plenty of chicanery and dirty tricks around the Nixon White House, and even bring in some specially baked cookies from home that influence world leaders and events. They develop a meaningful relationship with Woodward and Bernstein, and the rest is history, of a sort.
Dunst and Williams are squealy, girlish fun, but the best of "Dick" belongs to the man who plays him, Dan Hedaya. With his hunched shoulders, bristling eyebrows, and dark jowls he seems born to the role of Tricky Dick, and he makes Nixon entertaining enough that you almost want him back again on Watergate's 25th anniversary to kick around some more.
"Dick" is uneven satire. The high points are probably enough to make the trip worth while, but be prepared for long stretches of tedium.
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