FireBlade DVD Review: Dick

Review by Jerry Stratton, 2/10/2000

I am now a director that’s had a fart joke in a movie.

Hey, if you can’t make fun of Watergate, what can you make fun of? Unfortunately, while they’ve ferreted out a number of jokes, they don’t go very far with them. The best jokes, are, of course, the “Dick” jokes, but Watergate really should be much funnier than this.

Typical Columbia TriStar. I’ve never even heard of this movie and they still gave it the royal treatment. On the other hand, there isn’t much you can do with a movie of this caliber. It has a “making of” featurette. But, as you would expect from “-ette”, it is very short. There isn’t any actual “making of” within the featurette. And, annoyingly, the “real” footage (as opposed to the film footage spliced into the featurette) is deliberately choppy. They’ve done what looks like removing every other frame to give it a “strobe-light” effect without the darkness between the flashes.

The director’s commentary by Andrew Fleming (with co-writer Sheryl Longin) is better than the movie. They talk about why they did things and how they did things. I was fascinated to discover that the exterior shot showing the girls playing around in their Watergate apartment was the Watergate apartment, but the girls were not playing inside: their set had been matted onto the apartment shot. In fact, if you find yourself sitting in front of the television set with this DVD to watch, I’d recommend going straight to the commentary. It’s more interesting than the movie.

It isn’t that the acting or the idea is bad. It’s a great idea, and the acting, especially by those playing Nixon conspirators, is very good. Dan Hedaya as Nixon is great, and Kirsten Dunst (Wag the Dog) and Michelle Williams (Dawson’s Creek) are quite good. I lay the blame solely on the writers and director. The movie just doesn’t go anywhere with its attributes.

The DVD also has a nice isolated score, featuring the John Debney score and some of the period songs from the movie. It includes “ABC”, “Rock Your Baby”, “Lady Marmalade”, “Mr. Big Stuff”, “Crocodile Rock”, “Rock On”, “The Locomotion”, “Come and Get Your Love”, “I’ve Seen All Good People”, “You’re So Vain”, and “Dancing Queen”.

Recommendation: Special Interests Only

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Jerry