Viewed in
2011
Formats
Cable TV
Premise
Peter Sellers stars as a peculiar, simple-minded gardener who finds himself becoming the United States President's advisor.
Liked
Sellers' performance.
Disliked
Preposterous plot.
Thoughts
Movies that rely on all the characters turning a blind eye to the obvious can be difficult to sell. This was no different.
The best part was the performances. Sellers was virtuoso as the protagonist, playing a man with limited range of knowledge, awareness, and emotion. It also boasted strong performances from Melvyn Douglas and Shirley MacLaine.
Unfortunately, that was pretty much the only thing I enjoyed. Watching it in 2011, many aspects and sensibilities of the film have definitely aged badly. The idea of not having a single shred of evidence of a man's existence was laughably implausible to me.
Equally bad was the whole premise and its execution. I found myself bored by the halfway point, and dreaded watching another repetitive hour of characters misunderstanding his tunnel-vision as words of wisdom. It felt like a short story stretched beyond its limits. Every speech about life becoming more and more pretentious.
One interesting moment was that they had outtakes during the credits as Sellers kept cracking up while delivering bad jive talk.
Aside from the acting, this movie did not work for me one bit. Similar premises have succeeded in the past, such as later titles, Dave and Forrest Gump. Here it failed because of its outdatedness, as well as its inability to be more than a one-joke movie.
What I would change
No idea.
