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DVD (16)
A moderately engaging satire, some of it amusing and some of it strained, but in considerable measure it reflects a strange circumstance in all our lives.
[A] satirically unbalanced in its attempted fusion of such varied targets as George Bush, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Muslim suicide bombers, and the hosts and contestants on American Idol.
In the words of Simon, it's a complete and utter disaster.
[Paul] Weitz co-directed the wonderful About a Boy in 2002, but in Dreamz -- a tediously facile satire -- his comic instincts fail him.
Like a commander-in-chief who's too good-naturedly dumb to be dangerous, the writer-director is ultimately too forgiving to do much bruising. (Or maybe too calculating, which kind of blurs into the same thing.)
American Dreamz is the rare case of a movie that gets better as it goes along.
American Dreamz tries hard to be both important and farcical, but it leans a bit too much towards farce without being funny enough to pull that off either. It's decent, but uninspired.
The pieces are all in place for a slashing Preston Sturges jamboree. All that's missing are balls
Writer/Director Paul Wietz ("In Good Company") tries his hand at creating a topical satire of our current American social-political crisis and comes up far short of capturing the brutal climate of a country running on the fumes of its dismembered civil ri
Social satire more for teens and adults.
Did writer-director Paul Weitz think that U.S. audiences would be too dumb to appreciate actual satire?
A comedy that delivers in every way, "American Dreamz" easily gets my vote.
Viewers are left with nearly two hours of dull, rather obvious gags.
takes no prisoners when it comes to making a statement. Smart, pointed, yet fearlessly silly, it might just shift a few paradigms.
This funny movie might play better at home where the rapid-fire witty one-liners can be heard.
In a way, this film talks out of both sides of its mouth -- lampooning and loving its targets at the same time. But most viewers, I suspect, won't mind.
After a promising start, the film visibly deflates before your eyes, as joke after joke falls flat and Weitz himself seems to forget why he thought the premise was funny in the first place.
...Opting for a broad, light mood that's at complete odds with the darker potential of its political premise.
It has the good sense to hold up a mirror to ourselves, only instead of making us feel guilty and stupid, it makes us feel inclusive and in on the big joke.
There's the seed of a good satire in American Dreamz, but the film flops spectacularly due to a poorly written screenplay.
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