My Fellow Americans

My Fellow Americans(480P)

source: My Fellow Americans

This is a pretty unique presidential comedy because the protagonists, Jack Lemmon and James Garner, are a pair of presidents already out of office. It must have made Walter Matthau, Lemmon's comic counterpart for over 30 years, feel pretty expendable to see the same "Odd Couple" chemistry with Garner performing so well across Lemmon. The movie cleverly starts out with Lemmon's character presidential candidate Kramer having been just elected president, thanking his constituents with joy and giving a speech about "how dreams are like children, they must be nurtured", this is a running gag here, this is the only speech he has and he gives it at least a hundred times in the first hour of the movie alone. We then fast-forward four years and we hear Jack Lemmon at a podium in front of a big crowd, this time conceding to his opponent and giving a speech, obviously a lie, about how much confidence he has in his opponent to run the country. We start to think the movie is about to settle down, but before we get to know any more about the characters, we're fast forwarded 4 years, where Garner's character Matt Douglas has just lost to Kramer's former vice-president (Akroyd), and if that's not a long enough introduction, we fast-forward 3 more years we finally begin to settle in, and after the movie has given us enough motion sickness, we see Kramer and Douglas, feeling nostalgic and unfulfilled about their mediocre administations. When you think about it, it's nothing more than a midlife crisis. After that, however things kind of get confusing. Haney frames Kramer for a fraud as a way for the administration to defer blame. That's understandable, but for some odd reason, this pits the two ex-presidents together into a life-or-death battle against the national security agency. I think the plot is ridiculous, maybe I should've been more astute, but why was Douglas' life in danger? Why didn't the two ex-presidents go to the local authorities? Why was the NSA involved? However, regardless of the lack of anything convincing, the movie is undeniably fun. I'm not sure exactly why the characters are doing what they're doing, but at least they're having fun doing it and we can't help but have some fun watching them on their shenanigans, accidentally marching in a gay parade, hitching a ride with some illegal immigrants, posing as presidential impersonators of themselves, and the like. The humor also borders on political satire as well. At the end of the movie, the good guys win in Disney-like fashion and everything turns out just fine and dandy, and because of that my first reaction was extremely joyous walking out of the theater. I was thinking, "Yay! The presidents won! They're gonna clean out Washington!" That's what a happy ending does for you, but shortly after, it struck me how ridiculous and Disney-like the movie was. I think Roger Ebert said it best when he said "it's soon to be forgotten, but it has its moments." It makes little sense, true, but it's pretty fun.

I laughed all the way through this one. One could call it "Grumpy Old Men Go To Washington", it bore such a resemblance. Two ex-presidents get into hot water when the sitting president sends a rogue NSA agent to eliminate them, to hide one of his shenanigans. The entire film was centered around these 2 old geezers trying to outsmart and elude the agent and his thugs. Very good performances by Lemmon and Garner.

"My Fellow Americans" is not an especially deep or groundbreaking film--but it is marvelously entertaining. It's helped by very good dialog and very good acting to make what is essentially another road buddy picture stand out from the crowd. This film begins with a prologue. In this fictionalized world, the US has had two recent one-term presidents (Jack Lemmon and James Garner). Neither was especially popular and both hate each other and come from the other political party. And, now that they are no longer in office, they both feel a bit useless. However, when the rather amoral new president gets in trouble for ethics violations, he's easily convinced to simply blame it on one of his predecessors (Lemmon). But, when Garner accidentally stumbles into this, he, too, is now in trouble with the evil new president. It seems that the new president is more than happy to now set up BOTH ex-presidents--and soon Lemmon and Garner are on the run from agents who seem eager to kill them. Can they avoid these crazed agents and help expose the truth? And, can they manage to get along long enough to get this done? While this film occasionally has lapses in writing (such as the getaway on horseback and the very end of the film), much of the time the film works when neither ex-president is doing anything other than argue with each other. This makes the film seem a bit like "Grumpy Old Men"--and simply having the two fine actors gripe at each other is more than enough to provide laughs and some fine moments. By the way, if you do watch, pay attention during the horseback scene. You can notice that the faces of Garner and Lemmon was VERY clumsily pasted onto the stuntmen to make it look like they are doing the actual riding. It's amazing how much better such CGI has gotten since 1996.

I was very impressed with MY FELLOW AMERICANS the first time I watched it. I was expecting the film to be horrid as it starred Jack Lemmon (which is great) but had James Garner in place of Walter Matthau. I thought this might create a problem, but no. The story is very fresh and original and the dialogue is witty and the film is filled with a biting sense of sarcasm. It is a touching film at that as well, because it teaches good life lessons about how you should not waste your time and just get right to living. The film has violence and action sequences (explosions, gun shots) that almost make it seem like an action comedy. But, no this is no action comedy. Just a good clean, fun comedy. The role played by James Garner is very well written and it seems that his role was written with Matthau in mind. But, Garner takes his place well and the film would not have been the same without him. Truly hilarious. MY FELLOW AMERICANS: 4/5.

Starts funny but there are too many dirty words to enjoy. James Gardner and Jack Lemmon hate each other in this movie and gradually move on but in the process they refer to each other in terms like "*", "d__khead" "sh__t" "ass" it is just to vulgar. James Gardner is a former President as well as Jack Lemmom. James Gardner is a Democrat and Jack Lemmon is a Republican. James Gardner makes a deal with top Democrats to frame Jack Lemmon. Gardner thinks he will get party support to run as President again if he helps out in this frame up. Both end up being kidnapped and their life in danger. These guys are great actors and in their older years not bad. Jack Lemmon sounds very similar to Ronald Reagan when he speaks. What a waste of talent.

Hollywood legends Jack Lemmon and James Garner star as former U.S. presidents (Lemmon Republican and Garner Democratic) who unwittingly become involved with political espionage as they become targets of someone within the new administration (Dan Aykroyd, Lemmon's former vice president, is now the commander-in-chief). Soon they are chased by bad secret service agents and constant assassination attempts also follow with would-be hilarious results. They also see America as they have never seen it before and learn that many of their decisions were not the best for those in the national public. "My Fellow Americans" is a watchable little film, but ultimately it does not completely succeed. The tone of the picture goes for laughs and then tries to educate those watching by showing how people in the highest of places can affect ordinary folks. This double standard just does not play as well as I would have liked. John Heard's character (as Aykroyd's vice president) steals every scene with his naive and silly antics. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

"My Fellow Americans" combines great actors and some occasionally good dialog with a sub-par story and bad direction. Heard gives the best performance as the dimwitted (so you think) vice president. Does anyone else think that the roles Garner and Lemmon had should have been reversed? All-in-all the film was a bad vehicle for the talent on display, especially in the case of Aykroyd who was never allowed any chance to display his comedic depth.

We just happened upon this movie a couple of years ago when looking for some movies to rent. Somehow we had missed it when the movie had been released and it was new to us. We figured with Jack Lemmon and James Garner it couldn't be too bad. We thoroughtly enjoyed the movie and think it is one of the funniest movies around. Lemmon and Garner play against one another perfectly. After seeing it the first time, we went ahead and purchased the movie. We have watched it more than a few times and have never grown tired of it. There are some favorite scenes that we still laugh about even thought we know what is coming. We highly recommend this movie to anyone who is the mood for some good laughs and even some thoughtful moments. You might not want children to see this because of language and a couple of scenes in bedrooms.