An unsuccessful capaign for laughs

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By Glenn Whipp
Los Angeles Daily News

Posted: February 20, 2004

A political comedy in which there are no winners -- or laughs -- "Welcome to Mooseport" will disappoint anybody who comes to the theater expecting a first-rate farce based on the pairing of Gene Hackman and Ray Romano. The movie's leads are completely stranded by the humorless material and a glacial pacing that's about as exciting as an all-night filibuster orated by Orrin Hatch.

By all rights, "Mooseport" should be a good movie. The premise sounds OK. The former president of the United States, a charismatic rogue named Monroe "Eagle" Cole, retires to his vacation home in small-town Mooseport, Maine, and, a couple of twists and turns later, finds himself running for mayor against a local handyman, Handy Harrison (Romano).

So you've got Hackman, so good at comical bombast, pitted against America's current No. 1 likable shlub, Romano. But the movie goes wrong in every possible way, with contrived romantic subplots, an excess of shots of cute animals (always a sign of desperation) and overly whimsical music that unfailingly lets you know where the laughs are supposed to be.

The latter device does prove helpful because "Mooseport" just plain isn't funny. The movie is credited to writer Tom Schulman, whose resume includes "Dead Poets Society" and "What About Bob?" but also sports "Medicine Man" and the Eddie Murphy bomb "Holy Man." With this guy, it's a wheel of fortune every time out, and here it has landed on (comically) bankrupt.

Of course, director Donald Petrie ("Miss Congeniality," "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days") deserves much of the blame, too, extending as he does every comic set piece past the point of no return. Pro's pros Hackman and Romano gut it out, but when the film delivers one saccharine ending only to set up another -- and then another! -- you can almost see the flop sweat as they struggle to hold their smiles in place.