Samba Traore. - movie reviews

National Catholic Reporter, May 21, 1993 by Joseph Cunneen

The point of all this is not to feel regret that you weren't free to spend a month at Lincoln Center, but to build interest in African cinema for possible presentation at art film theaters and universities and on public television.

The good news is that this rich tradition exists, ready to delight you; the bad news is that little of it is available in video. You can organize your own festival, however, by drawing on 16mm prints of African films in the catalog of New Yorker Film s (16 W 61, New York, NY 10023).

Meanwhile, to renew contact with the world of Hollywood commercial film, I took a chance on "Dave" (Warner Bros.) at a neighborhood preview. It should become one of the summer's successes.

Director Ivan Reitman's earlier successes ("National Lampoon's Animal House," 1978, and "Ghostbusters," 1984) appealed primarily to the anarchic sensibility of adolescents. His new movie, more upbeat, should cross all generational lines.

Kevin Kline makes the most of a rich double role, playing both a cynical president and his naive, idealistic look-alike who is prevailed upon to substitute for him temporarily.

This wild premise has many analogs to plots you've seen before, but the White House framework gives it a fresh twist. And the many cameo bits by politicians, news people and entertainers - from Tip O'Neill to Nina Totenberg to Larry King - provide a glossy realism that should keep audiences alert.

The politics of "Dave" is nonpartisan - Sens. Simpson and Simon get equal time - but the film is not mindless. The president's corruption is established not by his liaison with his blond appointment secretary, but by his previous demonstration of indifference to the homeless.

In contrast, before the Secret Service enlists Dave to put his imitation of the president to practical purpose, he is working to help people get temporary jobs.

We are offered a worldly view of the workings of statecraft and the perks of office, but from the opening establishing shots of Washington, there is also respect for the majesty of government.

The film moves fast enough to keep ahead of most questions about probability and is immensely helped by a supporting cast that includes Sigourney Weaver as the president's purely ceremonial wife (who is an advocate for the homeless), a wonderfully corrupt Frank Langella as the ambitious chief of staff, Kevin Dunn as press secretary and Ben Kingsley as vice president.

Kline does well with the contrasting modes of ceremonial behavior displayed in his two roles. As president, he is an egotistical stuffed shirt following a script; as the temp-president, he gets honestly carried about by crowds and romps with dogs on the White House lawn. He even melts the formal correctness of a black Secret Service agent into genuine rapport.

Audiences cheer when Dave, after being briefed by an accountant friend - the same one on whom he'd unloaded a few extra temporary workers at the beginning of the movie - explains to his cabinet the budget cuts that will make the housing bill possible.