Very Cool!!!

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

watched in B&B because it was there. OK, lots of stars cast, surprised by that. OK story line, Ray was OK not great. Gene was better. Glad I didn't pay for it but for free...worth it. Wife slept through it but I stayed with it and could make out a reasonable plot. Highly unrealistic but hey, it's movie time.

Well, I enjoyed this film even though it's now 13 years old. Has a real small town feel to it in a good way. The story is okay, if a little silly. The best part for me were the performances. Gene Hackman, of course can do no wrong in my opinion. He's going to be good at what ever he does. I really like Ray Romano. I thought it would be difficult to watch without thinking of Everybody Loves Raymond, but he holds his own. What I really enjoyed was all the additional small town characters that make this film so likable. Especially Reuben.... "I was MY IDEA!" All in all, a fun film. Not sure if I will watch it again, but I'm sure there will be a day when I want to see a light fun film. It will also be good for my future career as a professional movie critic.

Monroe 'Eagle' Cole (Gene Hackman) is a popular ex-President in a nasty divorce with ex-wife Charlotte (Christine Baranski). He is moving into his summer home in Mooseport, Maine with his assistants Grace Sutherland (Marcia Gay Harden) and Bullard (Fred Savage). Handy Harrison (Ray Romano) is the amiable local hardware store owner and handyman. Sally Mannis (Maura Tierney) is his 6-year girlfriend tired of waiting for him. She catches the eye of the Eagle. The mayor dies suddenly and the town begs the ex-President to run. He runs for mayor but so does Handy. Word gets out in the press and he can't quit. Handy agrees to bow out until Sally accepts a date with the Eagle. Campaign manager Bert Langdon (Rip Torn) arrives and let the campaigning begins.This is a light comedy without many big laughs. Romano is perfectly nice and Hackman is fine. They don't have the needed wackiness to make this hilarious. It has its charm-like qualities but it is unwilling to push harder. This has the possibilities of a funnier movie.

As an avid fan of the genius that is Everybody Loves Raymond, i went in to this movie with a degree of optimism- and was dramatically let down.The worst thing is the character Ray Romano plays in this movie 'Handy,' well they might as well of called him Ray Barone because he is exactly the same character as he is in his famous sitcom only a plumber without kids and a wife. Good thing right? WRONG...he plays a hapless oblivious bumbling idiot, which instead of bringing out a lovable aspect,you cringe at how a this guy can be so infuriatingly simple.Probably most infuriatingly of all about his character is not his own doing, but his undying love toward the nightmare that is his girlfriend in this movie. What the heck does this guy see in this broad? I mean shes the nice ER girl don't get me wrong, but the things she does to him in this movie merits his leaving her immediately. Seriously, Ray sorry 'HAndy' turns up a little late from work so she gives him dogs abuse and he accepts it. She then happily while still supposedly going out with the ray guy starts dating the President. And she has the audacity to continue to stomp about like the bell of the ball and continue to give the ray guy dogs abuse for being quite forgivably bemused by her show of loyalty to the guy she was supposed to have been with for six years. Heck she even throws books stones underwear whatever household appliance landed on this poor dudes head. This brings us to the plot then we'll delve in to the disaster that was the stereotypical characters later. basically Andy (can i just call him Ray) is a kind, simple but happy small time guy who is the plumber of Mooseport, an obvious look at small-town America,a town in Maine. The movie starts off with literally everybody going 'Hi Handy' everybody loves....Handy? familiar pattern huh, anyway jam packed full of pointless gags later, we meet Gene Hackman acting as the popular ex-president. He is forced to run for mayor of Mooseport or whatever this place is called, to improve his finances after a messy divorce we're led to believe, and so needs to get his PR ship shape. Then Ray's girlfriend the pretty ER girl takes Gene's fancy and that convinces him. Ray is understandably miffed; yet the story takes the turn that basically Ray runs against Gene to win the girl. GAG ME. Most guys would look twice at the stunts his girl was pulling off and personally recommended the girl and the election to the rival. But Ray was determined. The rest of the movie follows the boring pattern of David morally triumphing over Goliath etc.Ray's character seemed more like the outtakes of his Ray Barone character, and his interaction with Hackman was about as spontaneous and funny as an episode of the Antiques Roadshow. Which is a tragedy considering how Hackman is one of the finest actors to grace the bigscreen in our lifetime. Yet he looked vacant in this role.And the ER girl seriously should have revised her role as she merited ridicule rather than a future gig in movie stardom. However Ray remained a small light of decency to this movie, he at times carried off the lovable simpleton well with his comic charisma which valiantly failed to turn which was a ridiculously bad script in to something watchable.You know the movie was off to a bad start when a random naked dude is running to start the movie, having no bearing on proceedings what some ever. Ray owns a pet Donkey which walks about the street; And we have the obvious nose 'gag' comparing Ray and the Donkey's nose- and that is about the extent of the intelligence to the humour. We even have gene Hackman say 'Unless Donkey's fly- i'm always going to be Mr. President...' wait for it, yup! guess what he sees when he looks out the window of his plane-no seriously- A donkey transported by a nearby helicopter. Thats what the film seemed like a bogged down relationship, election story with odd snippets of dreadful humour neither cynical, intelligent or goofy enough to be funny, it was just plain- turgid.To sum up i bought the movie in the supermarket for a couple of bucks, and that basically sums it up- its a bargain bin movie and a sad state of affairs for wonderful talent like Hackman. No doubt Ray as a great comic will find his niche, however on evidence of this movie he looked like a fish out of water without his wonderful co-cast from his Raymond sitcom.