Wonkette Movie Night: Dave
'I think there are certain things you should expect from your president. I had to care more about you than I do about me. I had to care more about what's right than I do about what's popular.'
Dave Kovic is an everyday Joe who looks almost exactly like the president, Bill Mitchell, who is kind of a dick. Dave runs a temp agency, and has a side gig where he hires himself out to come to events and do comedic impersonations of Mitchell. The real President Mitchell is a philandering jerk who uses his power and position to have sex with a young woman, Randi, who works for him. Working for the president and pulling the strings is his unethical, evil and grossly ambitious aide Bob Alexander.
The first lady, Ellen, hates her husband and reluctantly puts in only minimal required facetime in front of the press. (Hey, some of this is sounding a little familiar.)
Affable nice-guy Dave soon gets a surprise visit from the Secret Service. The real president needs some cover for his naughty times with Randi, so Dave gets the job. All Dave needs to do is wave and get in the limo.
Spoilers ahead.
While president Mitchell is having illicit sexy times with Randi, he has a nearly fatal stroke that leaves him in a coma that he’s not expected to recover from. Dave’s employment contract just got extended. Dave isn’t given the full details of why he is needed, just that it is for the good of the nation. Dave will continue to be the president and stay on script. Behind the scenes is Machiavellian Bob, who sees a big opportunity for himself.
If Bob can get the vice president out of the way, he believes he can take the top job. He just needs to do some backstabbing, lying, and gratuitous deceit to direct the poor veep under the wheels of the metaphorical bus. Bob sets the VP up to take the fall for the very fraud Bob had been committing.
Meanwhile, the first lady has figured out that the man claiming to be her husband is not him. For one thing, Dave is a nice guy and actually takes an interest in her project of expanding and improving homeless shelters.
After Ellen confronts Dave and discovers what actually happened to her husband, she and Dave come to an understanding. They need to expose the corruption, bring the truth to the country, and get Dave back to his own life. Ah, but to reveal the truth they are going to need to tell some lies themselves.
Fun trivia fact: this is the second movie night selection this month with one actor playing two different characters who meet face to face.
Dave stars Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, Frank Langella, Charles Grodin, Ben Kingsley, Laura Linney, Ving Rhames, and Bonnie Hunt. Directed by Ivan Reitman.
Dave is available for free on Dailymotion and OK.RU. $3.99 in the usual places.
To make requests and see the movie lists and schedules go to WonkMovie.
The animated short is Papillon (Butterfly) by Florence Miailhe.
Next week’s Movie Night is our 200th movie! We are watching The Apartment. It’s available with subscription on Hulu and MGM+. Free with ads on Tubi, Pluto TV and Plex.
𝐁𝐎𝐍𝐔𝐒 𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐀:
Although the plot of this movie is largely fantasy, there was a real instance in U.S. history of a president's administration covering up the extent of his stroke and debilitation and instead allowing an un-elected non-politician to govern in his place after his incapacity. In the autumn of 1919, about two years into Woodrow Wilson's second term, he suffered a stroke that left him semi-paralyzed, partly blind, and mentally incapacitated to an extent that is, a century later, still not completely known. The Twenty-Fifth Amendment (which establishes the procedures for responding to a presidential incapacity) had not yet been ratified. Instead of Wilson simply resigning and passing the presidency to his vice-president, Thomas R. Marshall, what happened instead was that the extent of Wilson's illness was kept secret, and his second wife, Edith, started running the executive branch of the U.S. government in his place.
𝐁𝐎𝐍𝐔𝐒 𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐀:
Many Presidents of the United States had thrown the first pitch at Major League Baseball games. However, unlike the character Dave Kovic, on the day the scene in baseball stadium Oriole Park at Camden Yards was filmed, no president had ever successfully thrown the baseball from the pitcher's mound to the catcher in U.S. history up to that point. President Bill Clinton threw the very first successful first pitch by a sitting U.S. president on April 5th, 1993, at the Baltimore Orioles' opening day game in Camden Yards. Dave (1993) premiered in U.S. theaters on May 7th, 1993 (which was also my 30th birthday.)