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Okay, "American Dreamz" is not the best movie I've ever seen. But it did make me laugh, and it's chock full of talent.

Plot: a young terrorist is assigned to blow himself up on the television show "American Dreamz" while President Staton is a judge for the show.

"American Dreamz" = "American Idol." President Staton = George Bush Willem Dafoe plays a Dick Cheney like character.

Hugh Grant plays a Simon Callow like character.

Hugh Grant, as the calculating, sadistic, game show host, shows us his inner snake, and it's a pleasure making the snake's acquaintance. Grant is convincingly cynical, twisted, and, at a key moment, vulnerable and poignant. And always funny.

Shoreh Aghdashloo, better known for operatic parts in serious dramas like "House of Sand and Fog," reveals a wonderful gift for comedy. I can only hope she ever gets to play comedy again.

Newcomer Sam Golzari is a poignantly convincing "everyman" driven to terrorism over grief at the death of his mother. The scene where he dances to Bob Fosse while in a terrorist training camp is worth the price of admission.

Another newcomer, Tony Yalda, is funny, commanding, and completely believable as a young show business wannabe. His every move is perfect, even as he watches his luckier cousin perform onstage. When he catches flaws in his own technique -- as he watches himself in his full length mirror -- his look of despair at his own failings is, there's that word again -- poignant.

Dennis Quaid, doing a George Bush imitation, somehow manages to keep his considerable sex appeal intact. How, I don't know.

Chris Klein, Mandy Moore, Marcia Gay Harden, Jennifer Coolidge -- these are very talented people and they are all perfect.

What isn't so great is the direction. It lacks the timing and snap of good comedic pacing. And there is a certain amount of incoherence in the script.

So, yeah, the movie isn't perfect, but it dares to poke fun at topics that have us all stymied, and to earn real laughs.

This smart satire about current issues and trends (the Iraq war, reality shows and all that jazz) is one of those sleepers that become cult movies 10 or 20 years after its original release. With an inspired cast that includes Hugh Grant as a cynical, vain TV show host (what were you expectin'?), Dennis Quaid as a dumb president who admires Carmen Electra and needs his chief of staff to think for him all the time (any similarity to real characters is no coincidence), Marcia Gay Harden as the first lady, Willem Dafoe as the chief of staff, and Mandy Moore as a talentless bitch (not even Moore could ruin it - this is, alongside another underrated satire, "Saved!", one of her least crappy performances, perhaps because she's kind of playing herself), and some very quotable lines, the movie tastes like a fast-food Monty Python - witty in spite of all the nonsense. "American Dreamz" may not have a memorable character like, say, Sacha Baron Cohen's "Borat", but it's just as corrosive. Too bad it didn't get the attention it deserved when it came out. Do yourself a favor and go rent it. 7.5/10.

Imagine a terrorist getting to the final round of an American Idol-type show so that he can bump off one of the judges - the President of the United States. Paul Weitz has a great and creative imagination to think up the plot of "American Dreamz," a 2006 comedy that he wrote and directed.

The premise is that the President of the U.S. (Dennis Quaid) is the puppet of his chief adviser (Willem Dafoe) and has to have an earpiece so he knows what to say. At the beginning of the film, he's reading newspapers and discovering that things in the world aren't quite as they've been described to him. So absorbed is he in this new knowledge, that he won't leave the residence, and rumors surface that he's had a nervous breakdown or is ill. So his Chief of Staff mounts a massive publicity campaign, and one of the things he does is arrange for the President to judge the "American Dreamz" talent contest. Hugh Grant is the Simon Cowell character who also hosts the show. He wants a Jew and an Arab to compete, plus someone really yummy (Mandy Moore).

An idiot terrorist, Iqbal Riza (Tony Yalda) is sent to the U.S. to get him out of the way, and he lives with his cousins. His goal in life is to be on American Dreamz. However, the day the Dreamz committee arrives in response to his tape, his terrorist cousin Omer (Sam Golzali) is in his stage/basement setup doing a song from Guys and Dolls. He's scooped up for American Dreamz, which makes Iqbal a) furious and b) his choreographer. The terrorist bosses devise a bomb that Omer will retrieve in the mens room to kill himself and the President - but he has to get to the final round.

This comedy is truly outrageous. I just wish we could have seen a few more numbers from Omer and his cousin - for me, the competition just made the movie. In my opinion also, it would have been funnier if the Mandy Moore character of Sally Kendoo had been below par - she actually was pretty good. When Omer went into "The Impossible Dream" and one of the terrorists criticizes the choice of song to his fellow cell members, it was hilarious.

It is incredibly nervy to show terrorists assembling pieces of a bomb for Omer to put together and juxtapose it with a mindless competition - nervy because it's the old Hitchcock terror in normal places idea that is scary indeed.

After all Omer has been told about the evils in America, it must seem like a pretty silly place to him - but tempting - and he goes after the American Dream on American Dreamz. Sally Kendoo, looking for all the world like an innocent hometown girl, is anything but, as ruthless as they come, even taking advantage of an Iraqui vet she doesn't love to pull in audience votes. Grant is appropriately sleazy as Martin Tweed, Quaid good as an out of it President just finding his own voice, and Marcia Gay Harden has a small but colorful role as the First Lady.

Most of the characters are sketchy and not likable - except for Omer and his cousin, who are a riot. If only real young terrorists were the way these two are depicted.

"American Dreamz" is not the funniest or cleverest film ever made, but it isn't as bad as a lot of the other reviewers are saying. To be sure, it will offend anyone who is a fan of American Idol, President Bush, or Al Qaeda.

The jokes are cute but will not leave you rolling in the aisles. There are really good performances throughout, especially by Willem Dafoe. who I had never really seen in a comedic performance.

This film could have been more mean spirited, but they actually went out of their way to make all the characters empathetic. My favorite part is when the terrorist are looking forward to eating grapefruit sorbet.

It's a shame this film was not more popular in the theaters, because it has a lot going for it despite it's faults. Hopefully it will be more popular on DVD.

28 October 2006. American Dreamz is likely to be one of the overlooked and dismissed of the most puzzling and mysterious movie productions of 2006. It is a fascinating, confusing blend of comedy, drama yet and while not always executed well, it actually evokes a bold and daring attempt at movie-making. Both the lead characters played by Hugh Grant and Mandy Moore are not our American picture perfect personalities that the audience can like. It's actually Dennis Quaid's role as President that actually forms the foundation of this movie as his character develops and grows throughout.

Interestingly enough, this movie is a hard-hitting, serious drama of the rough and hardened role of television competition as well as the political machinations of government. This is a strange little drama wrapped up in the vestments of a supposedly a comedy that actually isn't. It's a dark comedy. The combination of comedy and drama, the director's attempt to capture the difficult subject matter in a tasteful manner that wouldn't alienate the entire audience wasn't completely successful. Yet underlying all the chaos, at its core this movie really did contain and present a rather nasty core of humanity, of acknowledgement between peers, of movement forward. In other words, this movie capture a little bit of real humanity and brought the audience a little further into the connection between human beings. Seven out of Ten Stars.