A nice place to visit

As a latter-day screwball comedy with a thin streak of (Frank) Capra-corn, Welcome to Mooseport is something less than boffo. But even with a less than scintillating script, the amassed talent—Gene Hackman, Maura Tierney, Ray Romano and a large gallery of wry supporting players—wrings a mild, steady stream of diverting humor out of some rather flimsily conceived situations.

Mooseport is a little town in Maine, and the wildly popular President Monroe “Eagle” Cole, divorced and finishing his second term, is moving there to take up permanent residence. Through a rapid series of unlikely coincidences, he finds himself running for town mayor against the local plumber/hardware store guy (Romano) and making dates with the latter’s longtime girlfriend, the feisty veterinarian (Tierney).

What ensues is a kind of bent romantic comedy mildly seasoned with glib political satire, and the silly premises help make silliness itself into a kind of virtue, comically at least, in the process. And that silliness multiplies—Cole’s campaign manager (Rip Torn) comes in to play hardball in the tiny town’s election, the President’s closest aides (Marcia Gay Harden and Fred Savage) are juggling personal and public agendas, and the Prexy’s sleekly predatory ex-wife (Christine Baranski) arrives to interfere on behalf of further millions in the divorce settlement.

It’s probably no surprise that Hackman fares best among the actors. More than any of the others, he bridges the gap between character and caricature in the film’s script and is thus the key factor in making passable entertainment out of something that might otherwise have bombed. Tierney is reasonably effective as a plucky sort who doesn’t know her own strength, and Romano wobbles a bit as the doofus in love. Both, however, seem faintly miscast here, and their lack of credibility as a couple is one of the larger gaps in the film’s emotional base.

Baranski’s blithe caricature of scheming avarice is the boldest instance of a snide and nasty humor that occasionally leaks into this generally good-natured comedy. And Harden’s character, a tough cookie inexplicably longing for greater intimacy with Cole, is an emblem of the film’s rather forced attempts at old-fashioned romance.