Movie Review: Welcome to Mooseport

Welcome to Mooseport

I'm not a fan of the TV show "Everybody Loves Raymond." In fact, I think the show is stupid. But I do like Gene Hackman, and I thought that Welcome to Mooseport had potential, at least from the few mildly amusing previews I'd seen. So I and a friend bought our tickets and settled in to be entertained. She fell asleep mid-movie (admittedly, she works some early hours, but I've never known her to fall asleep when we've been at movies in the past). I only felt like it.

Mooseport is a small Maine town that happens to be home to a US President's vacation residence. When he leaves offiice, a bitter White House divorce in which his ex-wife wins both cash and several other residences leaves him nowhere else to go. The community bands together to bid Monroe "Eagle" Cole (Gene Hackman) welcome with the biggest party they know how to throw. The president and his entourage, including his personal assistant Grace Sutherland (Marcia Gay Harden) and Bullard (Fred Savage), a young marketing and public relations whiz, privately laugh at the locals as they get set for the busy life of a former president much in demand for public appearances. But when the town's mayor suddenly dies, some city leaders get it into their head that the former president ought to run for the now open office.

Meanwhile, "Handy" Harrison (Ray Romano), a local hardware store owner and plumber, meets the president when he's called to the president's new residence to fix a toilet. But in a matter of hours, the two are locked in combat over both the mayoral race - for which Handy signed up before knowing Cole would be asked to run - and Handy's long-time girlfriend, local veterinarian Sally Mannis (Maura Tierney). Cole's vindictive ex-wife Charlotte (Christine Baranski) and his previous campaign chairman, Bert Langdon (Rip Torn), both show up in Moooseport to lend a hand with the election. And adding to the confusion and ensuing problems is the fact that Sally is running out of patience with Handy, and Grace has a secret.

I can tell you now that, although the previews and commercials lead you to believe there's some possibility Welcome to Mooseport will be funny, it isn't. The script is terrible. It's trite, predictable, and I think that even the word "amateur" isn't unfair to describe it. Ray Romano couldn't act his way out of a wet paper bag, and his onscreen presence becomes more and more unwelcome as the film rolls on. The Oscar®-winning Hackman is good, but he can't carry such a weak movie by himself. Marcia Gay Harden, who has won an Oscar® herself, isn't good at all, but then she's given nothing whatsoever with which to work. Maura Tierney is okay; Christine Baranski is okay; but Fred Savage is just plain silly, with acting abilities better only than Romano's. Of the entire cast, only Hackman and Torn show any real onscreen presence, and with a storyline and script that takes even those small moments and mashes them into pablum, Welcome to Mooseport is left with virtually no redeeming qualities at all.

FAMILY SUITABILITY: Welcome to Mooseport is rated PG-13. There are several instances of crude humor, but no overt sexuality or bad language. While I wouldn't have a problem with children as young as ten seeing the movie from the standpoint of content, I can't recommend that anyone of any age voluntarily view this turkey.