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'American Dreamz' provokes mostly Zzzz's

Incisive satire needs teeth — pointy, fangy teeth that break skin and leave bite marks.

"American Dreamz," a well-intentioned satire about national identity, fame and politics, is toothless. It has gums.

Universal Pictures 'American Dreamz' 2 out of 5 stars Director: Paul Weitz Starring: Hugh Grant, Dennis Quaid, Mandy Moore, Willem Dafoe, Chris Klein Run time: 115 minutes Release date: April 21, 2006 Rating: PG-13 for brief strong language and some sexual references. See showtimes Meet the director From 'American Pie' to 'American Dreamz,' Paul Weitz stays funny all the way. On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime [an error occurred while processing this directive]

What's strange is that "Dreamz" writer-director Paul Weitz — who brought us the big-hearted, if decidedly mild, "About a Boy," "In Good Company" and "American Pie" — believes he has made subversive political art. Weitz must have a piteously low threshold for the sort of punchy satire these times and this American presidency demand if he thinks having Dennis Quaid acting doltish as our commander in chief while war rages in the Middle East — it's George W. Bush, by darn! — is courageous political commentary. Weitz has achieved nothing so trenchant as the presidential spoofs on "Saturday Night Live." In an age that's produced direct political hits "Fahrenheit 9/11," "Syriana" and "V for Vendetta," Weitz's movie is gutless fluff.

A big problem is the implausibility of the comedy's slapdash premise. Like our leader, President Staton — a vacant-eyed, slow-drawling frat-boy type, who's quit his old boozing ways for 100-proof Christianity — prides himself on not reading the newspaper, instead taking daily briefings from his chief of staff (Willem Dafoe looking spot-on as a ringer for Vice President Dick Cheney, bald and birdish). But one day he decides to read the paper, which pops his eyes open to the nuances of what's really going on in the world. Oopsie.

To Dafoe/Cheney's consternation, the president is hooked. He hordes newspapers, magazines and mountains of books, versing himself in all-new global fascinations. He's so transfixed that he doesn't make a public appearance for three weeks, sparking rumors of illness or instability in the White House. So his right-hand man hatches a big idea: get the president to be a guest judge on the top-rated television singing contest "American Dreamz" (read "American Idol"). But look out! One of the singing contestants is part of a terrorist cell. The night the president is there, the singer will come strapped with explosives.

With the words "terrorist" and "explosives" we seem to be heading into dangerous satirical precincts, where loud statements can be humorously made. Nuh-uh. Weitz doesn't bore into the big issues his film flirts with, including the Iraq war and American culpability, the president's job performance and Cheney as insidious puppet master. As he approaches them, he flinches, falling back on drearily obvious gags about the cynicism of celebrity and the importance of an engaged, well-informed president.

The meeting of the president and "American Idol" is the stuff of hasty sitcom writing, so unconvincing that it quickly descends to farce, stretching something very broad even broader, until it snaps and whacks our intelligence in the eye.

A few hearty laughs pepper this thin comic gruel, courtesy of spirited performances. Hugh Grant makes a tangy Simon Cowell spoof, radiating rotten unctuous cruelty, hating himself as much as his pathetic fame-famished contestants. Quaid deploys his grinnin' Texas in an impressionistic performance that evokes the Bush smirk, gaze of quizzical blankness and alarming public rigidity.

When you consider bitterly powerful satires such as "Dr. Strangelove" and "Network," which cauterize numbskull politics and media exploitation, you realize how safe and ingratiating "American Dreamz" is. Weitz completely overlooks that successful satire stings and lashes. It challenges, offends, pushes you around to the brink of discomfort, pumps the blood, tingles the brain, questions the status quo, sometimes upending our notions of it.

With its feel-good ending, in which the president locates pat redemption, "Dreamz" fails us. It wants so badly to be liked that it does precisely what satire should never do: It comforts us.