Welcome to Mooseport (2004)

Pretty Good

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

This was Gene Hackman's last movie role, and Ray Romano's first time on the big screen. Romano was good enough on television with "Everybody Loves Raymond", but he seemed at sea in this movie. Not that the story was anything to write home about.The story involves a just-retired two-term President who travels to the title small town when the current mayor dies in office. The President is divorcing his wife, and has a vacation home in the town which he wants to keep, so he runs for mayor in the special election. Meanwhile, the local hardware store owner played by Romano has his girlfriend ready to leave him, so he runs for mayor to impress her.This movie is not really about politics so much as a romantic comedy. It is at best mildly amusing, and if you want to be amused by Ray Romano, stick to reruns of the "Everybody Loves Raymond" show instead.

My summary quote is a line from the movie and not the way I feel about the picture's message. Just had to get that out of the way. The conclusion you'll quickly come to after realizing the film's premise is that no way could this ever happen for real. An ex-President of the United States running for mayor of any small town USA is just not going to happen. It would be like an actor of say Gene Hackman's stature, an Oscar winner for "The French Connection" and "Unforgiven", showing up in a film like "Welcome to Mooseport". Well, wait a minute.For a Saturday evening family movie night, this one isn't the worst choice you could make. If you're a dedicated network TV series fan, you'll probably catch a lot of your favorites from past shows here, like Ray Romano, Christine Baranski, Maura Tierney, and wonder of Wonder Years, the grown up Fred Savage still looking like the same wholesome kid he was way back when. But that's about as far as you'll get, with Romano doing his Everybody Loves character, and similar offerings from the rest of the players who are pretty much typecast from previous roles. Which is not to say that that's a bad thing if you're a fan of the principals.Had this been made today though, think of the possibilities. You could have had a real life Joe the Plumber against a former President who took the whole hope and change thing just a bit too far. On the one hand you'd have a President who's approval index matched that of Monroe 'Eagle' Cole at the height of his Presidency, and on the other you'd have a candidate who actually knew how to fix things.

The idea had possibilities. An ex US President retires to Mooseport, Maine or Vermont, I forget. He gets tangled into running for mayor. With as great an actor as Gene Hackman, this film could have been very funny indeed. But some Hollywood 'artistic' executive (read bean counter) decided to give it to a team of uninspired hacks. If I gave a cinema-appreciation course, I would force my students to sit through this film in order to learn everything that is wrong with Hollywood today. Clichés, political-correctness, the predictability and the suspense of watching mushroom grow, all of the above run amok in this movie, which is *technically* perfect, as are most Hollywood productions. But it suffers from a deadly flaw: it is excruciatingly dull and unremittingly boring, although through no fault of Gene Hackman's or of any of the other main actors, with one exception, Ray Romano, who should abandon any idea of ever acting in any kind of comedy again. Will someone please tell me *who* decides to make such films?

There isn't a bad Gene Hackman movie filmed and this one was great. All of the acting was great and I think Ray Ramano was great also. I've never watched his sitcom but I might now. I don't remember the actress's name who played the wife but she always makes such a good snob. I thought the "panty" scene was hilarious. It was pretty obvious early in the movie that his female aid was in love with him. I must have missed something at the beginning because I don't know why he disliked the male aid that he would have get out of his eye sight. I'm going to have to plagiarize and use that one when my boss gets on my nerves. That is quite often. Anyway, I'm betting no one could name one movie that Gene Hackman has ever been in that wasn't good even if the actors around him were lousy. He can pull of drama, humor or thriller; you name it, Gene Hackman can do it. that is my story and I'm sticking to it.