AMERICAN DREAMZ

By: Abbie Bernstein
Review Date: Friday, April 21, 2006

If AMERICAN DREAMZ, with its puckish take on both the workings of the White House and AMERICAN IDOL, never bites as hard as it might, it still has a lot more snap than we might have expected from a major studio enterprise. Director/writer Paul Weitz (who fulfilled the same function on ABOUT A BOY and co-directed AMERICAN PIE) has affection for even the nastiest characters in this ambitiously structured exploration of pop culture, politics and even would-be terrorists.

President Joe Staton (Dennis Quaid) has just been re-elected but is too depressed and befuddled to leave his bedroom. Gung-ho and bossy Vice-President Sutter (Willem Dafoe) thinks he has just the plan to make the Prez seem like a man of the people: book him as guest judge on the finale of the hit TV talent show "American Dreamz" (think AMERICAN IDOL, with virtually no changes). Producer/host Martin Tweed (Hugh Grant) is gearing up with secret misery for another season of the phenomenon. Tweed wants an even wider spectrum of contestants than in the past, and instructs his staff to round up candidates that include an Arab and a Jew. The Arab in question, Omer (Sam Golzari), is a young man who delights in singing and dancing to songs from A CHORUS LINE. He's also, unknown to the nouveau riche Southern California relatives who have taken him in, a washout from a terrorist camp in the Middle East. Omer would far rather sing than fight, and his handlers initially think he's so useless that sending him away is their only option, but when they see he's got "Dreamz" potential and that the U.S. President will meet the finalists, they get ideas.

Meanwhile, small-town but ambitious Sally Kendoo (Mandy Moore) is taking full advantage of her erstwhile fiancé William (Chris Klein), who was so shattered by Sally's rejection that he enlisted in the Army, promptly got wounded and is a decorated veteran perfect for photo ops just as Sally comes onto the radar of the "Dreamz" staff.

That Weisz gets all of this to fit together quite organically, building to a climax that feels ironically right, is a tribute to his structural skills. He also gets terrifically funny moments from pretty much everyone, with Grant shining as a jerk wholly aware of his own atrociousness and Quaid making his somewhat dazed Chief Executive not only comical but actually likeable. Moore is wickedly right on as the climber who can turn on "sincerity" effortlessly, working it perfectly, then surprising us (and Tweed) with her actual candor. Golzari is fairly adorable as the good-natured Omer and Dafoe as the tirelessly pushy vice-president demonstrates a knack for verbal comedy. Adam Busch, as a Hasidic rapper contestant, also contributes some memorable comic moments.

While the subject matter is very different, AMERICAN DREAMZ has a bit of the vibe of AMERICAN PIE. It's got characters who are hapless, hopeless, out for themselves or all three, and the filmmakers and actors are shrewdly observant, yet somehow there's a kind of friendliness to it all. We are laughing, sometimes long and loud, but we like these people, too.