American Dreamz (2006)

Racist, Pretentious and Immoral

This film pretends to be a spoof about the current obsession with superficial fame as expressed through 'singing' 'talent' shows. Whoever wrote this film is not clever enough to pull this off.

The main characters in the film are :

1) An 'camp' Arab guy and his 'friend'. His colleagues want him to blow up the US president when they meet on the singing show (he is the finalist).
2) A blue eyed blond haired 'American girl' (the other finalist)
3) Her boyfriend (who wants to marry her)
4) The host of the show (played by Hugh Grant).

The problems I had with the film were :

1) It was hardly a spoof of this current 'celebrity culture'. This is evident in the fact that character 2) ends up being the 'good guy' character. She is portrayed as the sensible one in the film!
2) Character 2) ends up sleeping with character 4), yet character 2) still is portrayed as a good person in the film! In fact her boyfriend (character 3) gets so annoyed that he picks up the bomb which the Arab guy has dropped in the bin (he decides not to bomb everyone in the end) and threatens to kill everyone on set. In other words, the woman is unfaithful, but was portrayed in a good light and the man is ridiculed for being upset over his partner's infidelity! How ridiculous is this?
3) The portrayal of the Arab guy and his colleagues was the most reprehensible part of the film. First of all the Arab guy who is more western friendly is portrayed as lighter coloured, more camp (yes, they use 'campness' to signify western culture v. Arab culture) than the others. His colleagues who want him to carry out the suicide bombings are portrayed as more obviously Arab with beards, stronger accents, less western clothes and a backward mentality. The battle is basically portrayed as a western culture v Arab culture battle for the mind of Omar (the camp Arab guy). The Arab 'culture' is represented by suicide bombers. Of course, the western culture wins.

The film is dumb pathetic film and a (very small) part of the propaganda war that allows western governments to get away with the murder of so many Sunnis, Shias because they 'are all suicide bombers' who 'hate the west' and want to 'stop all of our liberties'. Subconsciously, many people who watch this film will walk out of this film with a small message of confirmation that Arabs are backward barbarians who are just dying (pun intended) for OUR help (the Taleban, Sadam Hussein, The Shah of Iran, the House of Saud, Hosni Mubarak etc etc)!!

And how many have died in the Middle East at the hands of such idiocy. And what have the Arabs ever done to us in the west (how many died on 9/11 v Iraq and Afghan wars - do the maths).

Whilst many will disagree with this view, I would only be interested if their disagreement is justified by sound reasoning. August 30, 2008

How did I miss this at the cinema?

"American Dreamz" is a black-comedy/satire about an unwilling Middle Eastern terrorist who is called on to murder the U.S. President when he becomes a contestant on "American Dreamz", and "American Idol"-esque talent show.

When "American Dreamz" was on at the cinema, I thought it was just another stupid comedy making fun of reality-television, much like Ben Elton's "Chart Throb" (which I found to be disappointing, might I add). It was only when I found a cheap DVD copy of this film that I decided to give it a chance, and man, was I surprised. "American Dreamz" is smart, funny and highly underrated.

The idea of blending a comedy about reality television with a topical issue such as terrorism is just brilliant, and the script and the acting are great too. Hugh Grant is perfect as the self-absorbed Martin Tweed, host of "American Dreamz", a character so egocentric that he makes comments like "sometimes I envy myself", and Dennis Quaid does an equally good job as a President who bears more than a passing resemblance to George W. Book. Normally, I can't stand Hugh Grant, but for the first time in his career, I actually liked him. In fact, in the final scenes, he and Quaid had me rolling around my lounge room laughing. I think the thing that I liked most about this film, though, was the fact that all of the characters are written in a sympathetic manner. Writer/director Paul Weitz could easily have chosen to make fun of his cast of characters, but instead he seems to genuinely care for them and as a result he presents characters whom the audience can genuinely like and cheer for. Weitz did a similar thing in his directorial debut, "American Pie", and it was for this reason, I believe, that "American Pie" stands out as being one of the best teen movies of recent years.

This film came and went at the cinemas far too quickly and I think that is mainly due to the fact that most people didn't realize what this film was actually about. Now that it is available on DVD, however, it is definitely worth giving it a chance and you might find yourself as pleasantly surprised as I was.
June 15, 2008

American Dreamz is an American Doze

This is barely a spiffy spoof on American culture and politics that might be all too close to a current TV show called "American Idol." Hugh Grant is a producer of the wildly successful "American Dreamz." He is professionally engaging and personally shallow, self-centered, and sleazy.

On the other side of the globe is an uncoordinated, two-left-footed terrorist in training whose mother was killed by an American bomb. Unfortunately, he loves American show tunes, and is caught by the silhouette of the light in his tent, dancing to one of them. His commanders decide that he will never be of any use, and order him to go to America as a sleeper agent. He is to take up residence with his aunt, uncle and two cousins. They plan on letting him sleep for a long time.

Then there is the President of the United States, played by Steven Quaid. He is a bone-headed, numbskull who gets everything he is supposed to say from his chief of staff, played by Willem Defoe. One morning he has the revelation that everything is not just black and white, and he goes on a reading frenzy beginning with the NY Times. He stays in the residence for weeks, just reading.

Mandy Moore is a blond, blue-eyed Karaoke singer from Anywhere, Ohio, and she definitely wants to become an American Dreamz Princess. She jilts her boyfriend as she finds out that she is selected for the show. The jilted beau decides to join the army where he is given only two weeks training before he finds himself in Iraq, where he gets shot in his tattooed arm that bears the name of his ex-girlfriend. He returns home to express his undying devotion to her.

(If you need to take a break from reading this review, I will understand).

Chief of staff, Willem Defoe decides to get the president out of his reading lethargy by booking him as a judge on "American Dreamz." American Dreamz Dream Team do their producer's bidding to find someone who is more ethnic than the average American. They should find someone from the middle east who they will ensure gets to the finals. And who do they discover practicing on his cousin's set in the basement of his aunt and uncle's California home? You guessed it!

Now the terrorists find their opportunity to strike at the clod of the United States. Will the sleeper terrorist who is love-struck with the American culture strap himself with a bomb, and blow up the president, or judge?

You'll have to see the movie to find out.

The acting is excellent and Hugh Grant deviates from his usual role as a sensitive, bumbling, loveable guy to heartless, intolerable creep.

As for actually seeing this movie, it's kind of a bomb. (Sorry, bad choice of words).

Take a nice nap instead. June 9, 2008

Better for Sketch Comedy

This movie potential to be good, but falls short in execution. This isn't to say it is a particularly bad movie, it just has some serious problems with it.

The performances range from good to painful. Grant is really the highlight of the film, and the one truly enjoyable part to watch. He gets most the good jokes, and really gets to live up the character. Moore is fine, if a little plain to watch. I have only really seen her own a character once, so this comes as no big surprise. The real problems come in Dafoe, Quaid, and Klein. Dafoe and Quaid put in fine performances, but the characters themselves are poorly conceived caricatures better suited for Saturday Night Live then as full characters in a film. Klein had the only truly obnoxious performance, with his normal doe eyed, sincere style going way to far.

The story also has a lot of issues. The movie is about the American Dreamz contest, and yet most of that is shown in montague while the rest of the movie focuses on a very cheap stab at the administration. The entire president sketch is better for web video's or sketch comedy rather than a movie plot-line.

This isn't a bad movie, it is just not a particularly great movie. It is split between trying to be a comedy and a social message, and neither works. Don't avoid watching this, but also don't go out of your way. May 29, 2008

A biting parody of Americal culture

A hilarious send-up of politics, reality TV, pop-culture marketing, and the image of America, this movie is not to be missed.

The movie opens, oddly enough, on a Taliban training camp. Robed terrorists are going through their paces as another man films their activities. However, in each scene, there is ONE terrorist who is messing up the shot - falling over the wall instead of jumping over it, dropping awkwardly from the climbing pole, misfiring his weapon. We discover that this person is Olmer (Sam Golzari), who is only at the camp because he is related to its director. In the privacy of his tent at night, Olmer listens to old 45s of showtunes and dreams of being a song and dance man. The camp director, wishing to get Olmer off his hands for good, packs him off to live with another relative in California, telling him that his sleeper cell will contact him when the time is right (but fully intending to abandon him).

Meanwhile, Martin Tweed (Hugh Grant), the British host of a very American-Idol-like reality TV show, is trying to keep his program at the top of the ratings. They are looking for a crop of contestants for the new season, and they discover Sally Kendoo (Mandy Moore), a singer from a rural area of Ohio. When he learns that Sally has a lovestruck Iraq War veteran (Chris Klein) for a boyfriend, something sparks Tweed's mind. He charges his team to also find an Arab and a Jew as contestants, leading to what he hopes will be hefty human interest drama during the show.

In the meantime, America's President (Dennis Quaid) is looking for some high profile appearances to boost approval ratings. It is decided that he'll be a guest judge on the final episode of the show, moving all the major players towards an inevitable and thoroughly entertaining conclusion.

I nearly busted a gut during this movie. It is such an accurate, sly parody of American society and the U.S. marketing machine. Performances are wonderful and light. Quaid is chuckle-worthy as the befuddled president, and Moore is a force as the driven, scheming Sally Kendoo. Golzari's Omer personifies the world's fascination with America. The script is fresh, funny, and smart. Rounding out the cast are Marcia Gay Harden as the first lady, Jennifer Coolidge as Sally's pushy stage mom, and Willem Dafoe as the President's chief of staff. With such an all-star cast, how can you lose??! Sooooo worth seeing. February 6, 2008

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