Claysaba
Excellent, Without a doubt!!
ChanFamous
I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.
Stephan Hammond
It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
bheadher
The first review I read here called parts of it "sickly sweet", but I would have to disagree with that. There is no sickly to this movie, but yes it is sweet in parts. You can't have a love story without it...the reviewer also said there wasn't much political insight to the movie, but I would have to again disagree. Arbitrarily I would give about 45 or 50% to the political aspect. Michael Douglas and Richard Dreyfuss both give excellent performances to their respective characters. Andrew Shepherd (Douglas) is the laid back, yet intensely serious President (Democrat) who lost his wife shortly before his election, and all through the movie has to deal with a variety of national issues as well as a foreign one. One of the best lines in the film is when Shepherd and his advisors are talking about an air strike he ordered the day before that obliterated a Libyan military office building in downtown Tripoli, after ensuring they hit it when the least amount of people were in the building. After one of the advisors says his actions are very presidential, Shepherd responds that some janitor was probably cleaning up, not knowing he had just ordered the man killed..."That was the least presidential thing I do." A very poignant moment indeed, and an excellent insight into the inner turmoil any president must feel in those kinds of circumstances.Senator Bob Rumson (Dreyfuss) (Yes, a Republican), meanwhile, is actively campaigning for a presidential election coming up. He latches onto a political tactic of attacking the current presidents budding relationship with Sydney Ellen Wade (Annette Bening), a political activist who slowly falls in love with Shepherd. Without describing every minute, the relationship plays a significant part in the story certainly, but the life of a president also peeks through all throughout the movie. The speech President Shepherd delivers in a press conference in defense of Sidney as well as his own presidency is in my mind genius, and is the crowning achievement of the movie. It was perfectly scripted and delivered...if the movie doesn't quite live up to political reality, it does come close indeed. It has heavy weight supporting cast, as well as carefully selected secondary supporting cast. It is simply an excellent 2 1/2 hours, and I watch it every time I can.
jeanjohn
I've had this movie in my library for a long time and recently viewed it for the 1st time in about 5 years. The base story is a cute little romance with some comedy elements thrown in. Even the very clichéd character portrayals as all Democrats good and all Republicans bad is tolerable, even though some of the depictions are really nonsensical. I can accept this somewhat as it comes from Rob Reiner who has talent but continues to let his artistic endeavors get heavily tainted by his childish and buffoonish life outlook.The acting is universally good and the nonpolitical portions of the script were very well done. But in the end the movie is completely undone by the loony toony pronouncements by the characters as to what cataclysmic results await us in 10 years if we don't toe the proper Al Gore line on global warming or whatever we're calling it now. It's 20 years down the road and were all still here and doing fine.The only value to watching this movie now is to realize the extent of the liberal nonsense that was routinely included in movies in the 90s. Today, at least they make an attempt to incorporate their agenda in a little more sophisticated manner. This movie is now hopeless for anybody with a brain.
jhh1912
The lead actress is especially good and we've seen her in several good films. I've also often enjoyed films with Michael Douglas. Both attracted me to the film initially. However, this particular film is slanted in its political views and is pulled out by networks prior to every election it seems. The Democrat President, his daughter, his girlfriend (who speaks French!), and his staff and friends are all charming and attractive and smiling and happy, while the Republicans are gray-haired and grave faced. A primary Republican politico, played by Richard Dreyfus, is shown with gray-hair (he was young then), and there's a white spotlight shining down on him (subtle) as he sneers and makes insulting remarks about the opposition. I think bias in either political direction doesn't belong in films, but it will probably never end. To conclude: I don't believe Moderates or Republicans will like this level of manipulation by Hollywood.
Desertman84
The American President is a romantic comedy that stars Michael Douglas and Annette Bening.It tells the romance that involves a widower US President named Andrew Shepherd and an environmental lobbyist Sydney Ellen Wade,who just transfered to Washington D.C. to take care of the passage of a crime control bill.The screenplay was written by one of the finest scribe in Aaron Sorkin and it was directed by ace director Rob Reiner.The movie was theatrically released in 1995 and it was apparent that Aaron Sorkin is warming up with the writing of this screenplay of the TV series, The West Wing. Despite being clichéd and predictable as well as it presents dated political issues,it was charming and heart- warming romantic comedy due to the performances of Douglas and Bening. There was also a lot of funny and memorable lines that will be a delight to the viewer especially fans of this genre.Overall,it is still worth watching at present.
