DICK

DICK (1999) **1/2

Reviewed 8/9/99

Dick is a clever idea that never quite fulfills its promise. Something of a take on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in which two bungling fools stumble through a well known "plot," Dick fails to fully satisfy because its characters never transcend their caricatures. It's a hard sell anyway and a brave one. Dick has the perception of being too juvenile for Nixon-history buffs and too mentally demanding for today's teenage audience.

Fifteen year-old Arlene (Michelle Williams), who lives in the Watergate complex, and her best friend Betsy (Kirsten Dunst) run into into G. Gordon Liddy (Harry Shearer in his Mr. Smither's voice) during his break-in, and later they bumble their way into becoming the White House dog walkers for Checkers. Arlene falls in love with President Nixon (Dan Hedaya, who looks as much like Bob Dole as Nixon), whom they come to call Dick, until one day Dick blows up at them. Enter Woodward (Will Ferrell) and Bernstein (Bruce McCulloch), and we soon discover the "true" identity of Deep Throat and what was really in the missing 18-1/2 minutes of Nixon's recordings.

Ferrell and McCulloch actually steal the show, playing the two reporters swooning with selfish ambition and egomaniacal foolishness. Williams comes off a little better than Dunst, who is the ditsier of the two. None of the actors look much like their real-life counterparts, but they play them with such goofiness it doesn't really matter, like Saul Rubinek's Kissinger, who is like a little boy with politics his toys.

Unfortunately, the movie treats everything as a joke, so ultimately we have nothing meaningful to hang on to. The plot and the characters are just vehicles for the humor, and while the film has some high comic moments, it also has a large share of duds. If only Arlene or Betsy or even Nixon had some real dreams or real passion, then the film could have given us a taste of the power of history instead of history as gimick.