Classic Movie Review Dave

Dave (1993) 

Directed by Ivan Reitman

Written by Gary Ross

Starring Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, Frank Langella, Kevin Dunn, Ving Rhames, Ben Kingsley 

Release Date May 7th, 1993 

Published June 7th, 2023 

Dave is one of the nicest movies ever made. This is such a good hearted, sweet, sincere movie that it feels entirely anachronistic a mere 30 years after its release. Politics in America has gotten so much uglier, nastier, and mean over the last 3 decades that Dave feels like a throwback to the 1930s rather than the 1990s. In Dave, politics is still filled with pit vipers and vile men with self-interested aims, but good is seemingly on an equal footing with the bad guy and more than capable of defeating the bad. 

That feels quaint today where it's nearly impossible to believe in or remotely trust anyone in an elected office. In 1993 director Ivan Reitman and writer Gary Ross were able to get away with making a political movie that never once mentions a party affiliation. The film is about the United States President and yet we never learn if he is a Republican or Democrat. The politics are able to somehow be so fuzzy that it could be either party in charge. This would be considered cowardice in this day and age and Reitman and Ross would be castigated by both sides. 

Dave is perhaps one of the last signposts of a pre-internet era of politics, a time where the lack of a constant need to feed the beast that is social media, allowed for the kind of political crossroads that seem impossible today. In the pre-internet era, parties crossed over party lines to vote what they believed in. Today, party lines are so strict, members are rumored to be leaving their party if they even consider voting against the party line agenda. The politics of Dave are, of course, secondary to the humorous conceit and central romance of the movie but it's still quite a notable indicator of just how far things have changed for the worse in Washington D.C. 

Dave stars Kevin Kline as Dave, the friendliest man in his neighborhood. When he isn't finding a job for everyone he's ever met via his temp business, Dave is opening restaurants and car dealerships portraying the President of the United States, President William Harrison Mitchell (also played by Kline), with whom he shares a striking resemblance. That resemblance is soon noticed by the White House who draft Dave to portray a Presidential double to protect the President as he leaves for a secret meeting. What Dave doesn't know, but we do, is that this meeting is actually an affair with his secretary, played by a young Laura Linney. 

Full length review at Geeks.Media