The fictional town of Mooseport, Maine, is the setting for this film which is billed as a comedy. Handy Harrison (Romano) owns the local hardware store and does the plumbing for the area and his girlfriend of six years is Sally, (Maura Tierney). Mooseport is also the vacation home of the former president of the United States, Monroe "Eagle" Cole (Gene Hackman) who, after two successful terms, is now using it as his permanent home. The job of Mayor of the small community has been vacated and the leading residents have persuaded Monroe to run for the office. He only acquiesces after he meets Sally and finds out she is single. Unbeknownst to the town council, Handy has also put in his bid for the Mayor post. Handy almost backs down in favor of the ex-president until he sees Monroe put a move on Sally. Handy has not been able to express his feelings for Sally to the extent of proposing but with Monroe now sabotaging his relationship with Sally he gets his courage up, and politicing and chalenges pick up.
Anything that Gene Hackman is in, not to also mention Marcia Gay Harden, is worth seeing, however, it's hard to believe that Gene Hackman star of the recent hit, Runaway Jury, would star in a movie like this or that Marcia Gay Harden, up for an oscar in Mystic River, would put herself in this position except that there is no pressure in this so-called comedy. The best scenes are the ones with Hackman and Harden. Romano is a star on TV and that's where he should be now but Maura Tierney does a fair job as Sally. Go see it if there is nothing else that attracts you or you don't want to think deep about a difficult story.
Director Donald Petrie fails to capitalize on his talented cast and by not exploiting the film's comedic heavy-hitters, only delivers a lightweight comedy that is short on laughs.
-Barbara Higdon
