Hackman and Romano in tight mayoral race

WELCOME TO MOOSEPORT (2004)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

This may be one of those guilty pleasure movies for me but "Welcome to Mooseport" is an affable, pleasant and thoroughly disarming comedy that works. The critics hated it but I liked it well enough. It is not a political satire nor is it the funniest political comedy. Its charms are simple and small, much like the small town it depicts.

Gene Hackman is the former President of the United States who wants to settle down in the small town of Mooseport. The town welcomes him with great open arms, though the President is not very keen on small town meetings and speeches and wanting to mingle with the innocent townsfolk. Some members of the town council, however, want the President to run for Mayor of Mooseport. His competition is Handy (Ray Romano), a soft-spoken younger man who knows how to fix toilets. Handy is unaware that he is in the mayoral running and drops out until he catches the President eyeing Handy's own girlfriend (thanklessly yet wonderfully played by Maura Tierney). Guess who asks Handy's girlfriend out for dinner? It is then that Handy decides to run for Mayor and it turns out that Handy can solve problems and beat the President in golf like no one's business.

Don't think for a moment that this movie is on the level of Frank Capra with its small-town witticisms and genial citizens. Yes, "Welcome to Mooseport" is too good to be true but I enjoyed the picture for not trying to be a cynical, savagely satirical take on small-town politics. It is simple and pure with a great cast that imbues the film with more nostalgia for a bygone era than sentimentality. Ray Romano is quirky and diverting enough to separate himself from his "Everybody Loves Raymond" character. Gene Hackman is a consummate actor who knows all the tricks to bring his guile President to boisterous life. Ditto Tierney as the tired girlfriend who wants to settle down, Marcia Gay Harden as one of the President's aides who feels the leader of the free world has lost some of his noble virtues, Fred Savage as another aide who tries to stay out of the President's eyeline, and the always engaging Rip Torn as the campaign manager.

"Welcome to Mooseport" is a lively, upbeat comedy that doesn't try too hard to be anything else. I would have liked more debates between Handy and the President and more direct punches at certain targets of humor (the Tiger Woods jokes are not as funny as Clinton's Presidential Library being bigger than Hackman's). Still, we sometimes need movies like this as a much-needed break from reality and cynicism.