Welcome to Mooseport Review
by Andy Keast (arthistoryguy AT aol DOT com)February 19th, 2004
"Welcome to Mooseport" (2004): * out of ****
Directed by Donald Petrie. Screenplay by Tom Schulman. Starring Gene Hackman, Ray Romano, Maura Tierney, Marcia Gay Harden, Christine Baranski, Fred Savage and Rip Torn.
by Andy Keast
Why did I go see this? Perhaps it was for the same reason why the characters in "Crash" purposefully smash their cars, or why you hold your hand over a heated stovetop, or why people tear at their own fingernails until they bleed: a perverse desire to harm oneself. It's never good when a comedy's only (marginally) funny scene is a game of Paper-Rock-Scissors. This thing was directed by Donald Petrie, and there simply isn't enough time or energy or four-letter words to adequately describe how awful he is at his craft.
What's the point of going into the plot? Gene Hackman is the ex-President who moves to the small New England town of Mooseport, where he is asked by city officials to run for mayor. The only one running against him is local hardware store owner Ray Romano. Hackman's character is an experienced politician, Romano's character is the usual homegrown aw-shucks buffoon, et cetera, et cetera…and so it stands to logic that the movie will be a "satire" of the electoral process, with every lame, recycled political joke intact. I'm convinced, however, that that's not what the filmmakers thought the film was about. I think they intended "Welcome to Mooseport" to be a candidate (haw haw) to test ones threshold of ultimate pain.
All the mass-produced "small-town" characters are in place, all the clichés, everything. I wonder if Hollywood producers really think small-town life is a ghettoized version of Newberry: Will there be a foul-mouthed old lady who uses phrases like "booty poodle?" How about a sassy black woman who perpetually bobs her head and ends every sentence with an "mm-hmm?" Marcia Gay Harden is the only actor here that creates a somewhat convincing character as the President's aide, and even then the screenplay reduces her to a love interest, badly.
Gene Hackman needs a new agent. Thirty years ago, he was starring in Coppola's "The Conversation," Schatzberg's "Scarecrow," and Friedkin's "The French Connection." Those were conflicted, complex roles that took guts and nuance to play. My generation of filmgoers now gets to know him from "Heartbreakers," "Behind Enemy Lines," "Runaway Jury" and this. I can just picture Hackman's Detective Doyle watching this film, and how seeing such a great actor embarrass himself would make him crash his car through the screen and start gunning down people in the theater. *That* would be funny.
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