Silver City Review
by Steve Rhodes (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)October 4th, 2004
SILVER CITY
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2004 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): **
SILVER CITY, a definite disappointment from writer/director/editor John Sayles, is a lifeless production that's underwritten and overcast. It has more than enough fine actors for two or three good movies, but Sayles's lackluster script and his energyless pacing leave them with little to do.
As Dickie Pilager, a tongue-tied doofus who is clearly supposed to be a parody of President Bush, Chris Cooper tries the hardest but ends up missing the mark the most. Cooper's version of Bush, I mean Pilager, is so unbelievable that his character couldn't even win a city council election. Cooper could simply have turned on any late night TV talk show in order to see how easy it is to caricature this or any other president. It is almost as if Cooper, a great actor, thinks that he is supposed to be playing a bad actor playing a politician rather than merely playing the politician.
Our idiot candidate, Dickie Pilager, is running for governor of Colorado with the active support of his father, Senator Judson Pilager (Michael Murphy). Both men are connected to nefarious businessmen who mean to despoil the environment. The basic setup is so exaggerated and simplistic that is about on the level of JETSONS: THE MOVIE, which pitted evil businessmen ready to despoil the environment on one side against the exploited workers on the other.
As the glue to hold the minimal plot together, the movie opens with a murder mystery. As the simpleton Pilager mumbles lines that he isn't capable of understanding for a TV ad about the importance of clean water, etc., he accidentally catches a dead body with his fishing gear. The movie keeps cutting back to the murder mystery but is never really interested in it. The film wants to be taken only as a political satire, but it is so lame that, whether you love or hate President Bush, it's hard care much about SILVER CITY, one way or the other. It's a movie that is preachy and just plain dull. Listening to it is like having to endure a sermon by a novice preacher who isn't quite sure what he wants to say, so he just rambles on and on in the hopes that, if he's earnest and talks long enough, he'll somehow discover what points he wants to make.
SILVER CITY runs too long at 2:09. It is rated R for "language" and would be acceptable for kids around 12 and up.
The film is playing in nationwide release now in the United States. In the Silicon Valley, it is showing at the Camera Cinemas.
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