FDR: American Badass!

I saw a screening of this in Portland and it is seriously one of the funniest films ever made. It reminded me of Airplane or Naked Gun. Partly because Barry Bostwick turns in a Leslie Nielson-esque performance, and more importantly, you believe him in the role of FDR. Don't get me wrong the dialogue is out of control and everything is played over the top, including the effects and werewolf costumes, but the cast seems to revel in it and act it out as if the words were Shakespeare. The surrounding cast around Bostwick really rose to level that he was playing his character, especially Ray Wise, Bruce McGill, and Ross Patterson. The filmmakers manage to pull off the low budget aspect and use it to bolster the film, so much so, that it seems like it was specifically written for that type of vibe. The film itself is extremely crass and involves blatant racism, but no one is safe from it. I for one LOVED this film and think it has the potential to be an instant cult classic, but I'm sure some people will be offended.

Am willing to bet not one person of million who saw this movie has noted the reference to "World War I" during a scene that takes place in 1931. Since WWII did not begin until 8 years later, how did they know The Great War was "World War I"? The movie itself I thought was very funny, and enjoyed it. It's obligatory now that every third word has to be f this and f that, in order to accommodate the teenagers. Only thing is, for this moving, the teenagers likely would not be interested anyhow, never having even heard of President Roosevelt. I spoke with a young woman, "history major" in her high school senior class, and she had no idea what was Pearl Harbor, that it was attacked, etc. FDR...who's he?

A fun idea, but the filmmakers behind it have no talent or intelligence whatsoever. This is a horror/sci-fi/action comedy about Franklin Roosevelt. In this movie's alternate history, FDR contracted polio from the bite of a Nazi werewolf. The Axis forces are all led by werewolves, and FDR, with his souped-up, machine-gun wheelchair goes to war himself against them. The concept is gold, but the screenwriter (Ross Patterson - he deserves to be called out by name) does little with it besides tell dick jokes and have old people swear and smoke weed (always comedy gold, right?). There's a good dose of racist jokes, too, with Werewolf Hirohito being unwatchably offensive (basically the only joke involving the Japanese is that they can't pronounce the letter "r"). Barry Bostwick is kind of amusing at times as FDR, but he's pretty much asked to carry the whole movie so he just mugs as much as possible. The only cast members who come out clean are Bruce McGill as FDR's head adviser and Ray Wise as Douglas MacArthur. Kevin Sorbo (who co-produced) shows up as the ghost of Abraham Lincoln. William Mapother, a character actor I've always liked (particularly from In the Bedroom and Lost), shows up for a while, too. This is painful.

Nobody expected this movie to be high art. But it was enjoyable. There was the historical sacrilege and the jokes in bad taste and historical figures saying dirty words. But there was also real cleverness and, most importantly, a real love that shone through the film. Nobody involved was phoning it in. It seems like everyone involved in making this movie was having fun, and you couldn't help but have fun along with them. I had a friend over, we cued it up, and laughed quite a bit. And in a year, I will have forgotten about it.

If you are offended by jokes involving racist / sexist stereotypes, you might want to give this one a miss.

"FDR: American Badass!" is a very frustrating movie. While I loved the audacity of the plot and loved some of the VERY low humor, the film, overall, is pretty bad. It looks like a film that really needed a rewrite here and there and the low humor was sometimes so low that it made me feel ashamed to watch it. In fact, eventually I just turned the thing off--it was that bad.

The film starts off wonderfully....really wonderfully. In fact, it was so good I was expecting to love the film. In this bizarre alternate reality, it's 1931 and Franklin Roosevelt CAN walk. However, he and his friends are attacked by a Nazi werewolf and FDR kills it--but only after it bites him and gives him polio!! These scenes and those in the hospital, though crude, made me laugh out loud several times. I was ashamed of myself...but it WAS very funny.

Unfortunately, what follows proved that although they had a great idea, the writers didn't have any more. The film was filled with too much scatological humor (I am talking about REALLY scatological--literally) and the repeated sexual references become boring and boorish. In fact, it starts to look like a movie written by a group of 7th graders--really, really crude ones at that. In fact, the film degenerated quickly to a totally unfunny mess. I turned it off when you see Roosevelt Jr. Taking a dumb in a pitcher (and they showed it). Why?! What's funny about this? Who would give them money to make this? Were they drunk or on acid when they made this?! I dunno--all I know is that after initially loving the film, I quickly tired of it and couldn't take any more.