Pretty Good

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

This is actually a fairly good comedy. Great cast too! The political satire is quite good. My only complaint is: Why is this movie not available in widescreen? When it played it theaters it was almost certainly at least 1:85.1 if not not 2:35.1 format. Come on Warner Brothers, please make this movie available in widescreen, or better yet, widescreen Blu Ray. This says that my review must have TEN LINES! I've already said what I needed to say, why is it necessary to write a minimum of ten lines when what I wanted to say can be said in about half of that? This seems to FORCE reviewers to be much more wordy than necessary. Be sure to watch the "bloopers" in the special features, they are hilarious. Jack Lemmon could NOT stop laughing! Still not enough? Okay, to summarize: good movie, under-rated. Should be available in widescreen though. Blu Ray widescreen would be best.

Barely entertaining, extremely thin, predictable "comedy" with occasional heartstring pulls thrown in inexplicably. Everybody learns something valuable, good guys are good, bad guys are bad, and the ending is exactly what you'd expect.Jack Lemmon is decent in his role. Dan Ackroyd plays The Dan Ackroyd character, this time with an occasionally shifting Southern accent. James Garner was best cast and did the most with his character. His comedic timing was spot-on, particularly when one considers the weak material he worked with.I normally don't note special effects because I don't really care about them, but there's a scene with characters on horseback that is so unbelievably bad in execution that it might as well have been puppets. The bloopers on the DVD are worth watching, if only to get a sense of what it must be like to work with Lemmon and Garner. I found Garner's ability to maintain character impressive! But this is not a picture I need to see again.

Those two old pros, Jack Lemmon and James Garner, in their only film together provide quite a few laughs in what would normally be a very serious subject, a constitutional crisis.Two former presidents, Lemmon a Republican and Garner a Democrat, have a real nasty rivalry going. But when current president Dan Ackroyd tries to pin a kickback in a defense contract scandal on his fellow Republican Lemmon things get good and nasty. Garner gets into it when he starts checking on which Republican really is the crooked one and stumbles on the murdered defense contractor.After that when the two presidents are nearly killed when a government helicopter blows up, they are on the run. They are forced into an alliance of convenience.Despite this description, it is in fact a comedy with these two men who even as ex-Presidents are used to having everything done for them. Quite amusing indeed when they're forced out on their own.It's funny, but there are some trenchant comments about the state of politics and life in general in America at the turn of the new millennium. Lauren Bacall is in this oh too briefly as Lemmon's wife and Dan Ackroyd is the current president with John Heard as his Dan Quayle like Vice President.Republican or Democrat most viewers will vote thumbs up for My Fellow Americans.

When this film first came out, the trailers did not interest me in the least. I actually avoided seeing it so as to avoid seeing two cool actors make asses out of themselves (in a bad way). The film was rather poorly marketed, in other words. It looked like Beavis and Butthead with two old guys (in a bad way).In other words, I'm glad this was the film shown on an Amtrak train a few years back. I think I was laughing harder than anyone else in my car. Frankly, I think a few jokes sailed over people's heads. I remember in particular that the hilarious mispronunciation of "facade" by Dan Ackroyd's clueless VP didn't merit a titter. A few people looked at me oddly when I laughed at it.This isn't brilliant film-making, mind you. It's simply a vehicle for a lot of very talented comic actors to have fun with some ripe material. It may dip into preachiness now and again, but that is always redeemed ASAP by an entertaining round of rapid-fire bickering.On an aside, I have to say that I've been in love with Lauren Bacall since I saw The Big Sleep for the first time. It was great to see her in this and even greater to see that she still has a knack for the sharply delivered one-liner. Also, for someone born in the 20s she looks amazing. You heard me right. At 82 years, Lauren Bacall is still hot. Bogie was a very lucky man.