Dave (1993)

Dave (1993)

7/10

Starring

Kevin Kline

Sigourney Weaver

Frank Langella

Kevin Dunn

Ving Rhames

Ben Kingsley

Directed by Ivan Reitman

Here is a movie I have seen numerous times and each time I get to see it again, I always do so with this excitement. To think someone thought getting a random person to impersonating the president was going to workout well, blows my mind.

Dave is a fantastic movie written with the idea of what will the White House be like if the president was a puppet controlled by his chief-of-staff. For me Dave as a film not only works as a political drama, but the comedy mixed with the romance also makes it easy to swallow as a romantic comedy.

Staged with backstabbing on all angles, the thill of how each character was going to manage the circumstances presented before them makes the film as thrilling as it is funny. The movie boast of fantastic acting from its leads in Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver and Frank Langella. The movie is directed by Ivan Reitman who called in Weaver to play the female lead, as both worked together in Ghostbusters.

The script for me did a good job in balancing a serious matter with a comedic tone. If you have not seen the movie before you are left to enjoy how Kline’s character had to overcome all challenges to keep the ball rolling.

The movie starts with an introduction to Dave (Kevin Kline) who runs a temporary employment agency and has a second job impersonating the president of the United States, Bill (Kevin Kline). One day Bill had to attend to an urgent matter (banging a White House staffer) and asked for a stand-in. Dave was hired to be the stand in. During the sex with the staffer the president suffered a stroke putting him in a coma. His chief-of-staff, Bob (Frank Langella) and communications director Alan, came up with an idea. So that they can continue to get things done their way, they sent the vice-president on a tour (claiming the task is from the president). Moved the president to a ward in the white house and bribed everyone who knows about it to keep their mouth shut.

 

They then hired Dave to play stand-in, while they use him to pass their policies, with the hope of ruining the vice-president and get Bob to be the VP.

Things did not go well, because the First Lady (who hates her husband and wants nothing to do with him and just sticks to the marriage until his presidency is over) suspects something is up. Dave also is not the best person to be a political puppet, because soon he started to have ideas of his own.

The movie is something you can see anytime and enjoy. It is funny and well crafted.

In fact it is said Bill Clinton (President at the time) liked the movie and autographed the script for the scriptwriter.