FDR: American Badass!

My brother told me of a movie once about a Vietnam vet turned poolboy who has to take on a rival Mexican gang of pool-cleaners, and I thought, "genius". Quite frankly, it was. From the same team that brought you "Poolboy: Drowning Out the Fury", comes an equally outrageous concept of a story. Franklin Delano Roosevelt gets polio from a werewolf attack and becomes determined to stop the Nazi werewolves and end the second world war for good.

FDR, played by a hysterical Barry Bostwick, gets polio from a werewolf. First off, the introduction of werewolves automatically tells you this movie will be very profound and dramatic. From a biographically standpoint, the events in the movie are very true to source. The story is a highly accurate telling of his rise to power, presidency, and war politics, but the real impressive aspect of this film is its attention to detail. The characters can seamlessly spout off lines of cocky socky comic genius and exploit themselves endlessly until the movie really just *ends* abruptly, with a climax so unforgettable, you wont be able to remember what happens in it.

The humor is crass, politically incorrect, and inversely subversive, so fans of bad movies should definitely hear it hitting the right notes. The narrative flows awkwardly steady, and the payoff is unimaginable, but what helps this movie entirely is the production design. John Waters once said his favorite movie idea "is to do a movie where everything's fake; the trees, the grass, even the sun", and that always described how I felt my life would be like if I were in a TV show from the heyday of America. It just seems funny to me, so in comes a movie that looks like it was shot entirely in a studio, and everything from the story to the characters to the dialogue and effects, just seems so consumingly fake, that it's incredible. Nothing in this movie can be taken seriously, and they just flat-out don't care. They had a funny idea and ran with it, exploiting FD Roosevelt for all his worth, and how he's a true American hero, regardless of anything he's ever done in "real life".

Now this may not be the "best" movie in the world, but by all means, it *is*, and to have a movie where FDR freestyles, men whore out their wives, black people play slaves, Nazi werewolves gossip anti- climactically, Japan continually gets made fun of, and Kevin Sorbo manifests as a cannabinoidally-induced Abraham Lincoln adviser... then you really can't go wrong with a movie that took an under-appreciated ex-president and turns him into a new-found American B.A.

The man. They myth. The Delano'saurus. Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And his jiggly polio legs that look like, and *are*, a complete joke. After all, isn't that what America is?

From the outset this film looks cheap and you might consider not bothering to watch it based on that but if you stick with it the great cast suck you into it's unbelievably ridiculous world. Barry Bostwick's performance Carry's the film. There's a lot of modern street talk that he manages to pull off, even though some of it is borderline to silly but at the same time he turns in some great speeches that would be worthy of a far more serious film.

There's not much point in explaining the film, it's far to daft to attempt an explanation but it works, that's mostly down to the cast, the production, direction is excellent too, given the low budget nature of the film they made the most of what they had.

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?

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.

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.