Welcome To Mooseport (2004)
comedy
directed by : Donald Petrie
featuring : Gene Hackman - Ray Romano - Marcia Gay Harden - Maura Tierney - Christine Baranski
running time : 1 hour 50 minutes
Hollywood filmmaker Donald Petrie directs the comedy Welcome To Mooseport. Gene Hackman stars as former U.S. President Monroe "The Eagle" Cole. He's retired to the small New England town of Mooseport, ME, in order to write his memoirs and relax. The retirement is put on hold, however, when he's persuaded to run for mayor of the town. Meanwhile, local hardware store owner and plumber Handy Harrison (Ray Romano) is just the sort of plaid-shirted everyman to run against him. Cole seems a sure win in the race, especially with his loyal personal assistants (Marcia Gay Harden and Fred Savage) aiding his every move. The competition gets even more severe when Handy's sweetheart Sally (Maura Tierney) comes between the two men. Welcome To Mooseport also stars Christine Baranski and Rip Torn.

A creaky film vehicle for popular TV star Romano, Welcome To Mooseport is a blandly genial comedy with a weak premise and such safe, edgeless execution that it feels like mediocre television, despite the presence of such talents as Hackman and Harden. Featuring a mayoral race in a small town between a vain, but essentially good-hearted, former president (Hackman) and a spineless, nebbishy, but essentially decent, plumber (Romano), the movie is devoid of cutting characterizations and sharp dialogue. The tone of the films' attempt at comedic local color is set with the opening shot of an elderly man's buttocks as he jogs nude down Mooseport's main street. Things don't pick up much from there in terms of supporting characters, which include those mainstays of lazy comedy writing, a foul-mouthed old lady, and a fat, sassy black woman. The film is supposed to take place in rural Maine, but never generates any real sense of time or place. Worse yet, while it may have been a satire in some earlier, edgier incarnation, this is a movie about politics that doesn't have any. Romano is reasonably ingratiating on his sitcom, and the character he plays in the film friendly, but immature, and full of self-doubt isn't much of a stretch. Tierney is an appealing actress, but the problem, again, as with Harden and Hackman, is that no one has anything particularly interesting to say. Welcome To Mooseport is a generally inoffensive trifle, but the superior cast leaves one longing for something a little better.