Welcome to Mooseport: Movie & DVD Review (2004)

(Originally published 2004)

“Welcome to Mooseport” is set in Maine, but that’s no reason to see it.

The movie is that rare moviegoing event in which you could actually save yourself the eight bucks by looking out a window. Whatever the view there, it likely will be more compelling than what’s tossed onto the screen here.

As directed by Donald Petrie from a script by Tom Schulman, “Welcome to Mooseport” is a high-concept, feature-length sitcom almost completely devoid of laughs. Its cast is appealing—that’s its hook—but its predictable story is such a lazy tumble of cliches, it never takes off to meet expectations.

The movie stars Ray Romano as Handy Harrison, a plumber in a small, seaside town that might have recalled Kennebunkport if it weren’t for the crowds of colorful, folksy stereotypes buzzing about town.

For instance, there’s the nudist jogger, who inexplicably runs through Mooseport’s busy, picturesque streets during the film’s opening credits without one person raising an eyebrow or, for that matter, the local law enforcement dragging him off to jail.

Instead, everyone here--all of them warm, smiling Mainers dressed in their L.L. Bean best--cheerfully waves good morning to him as if this were a nonevent. As such, the story hasn’t even begun and already it’s on shaky ground.

It never recovers.

The film revolves around Handy’s relationship with two people—his headstrong, longtime girlfriend, Sally (Maura Tierney), who wants the commitment-shy Handy to pop the question so they can formally start their life together, and the former president of the United States, Monroe “The Eagle” Cole (Gene Hackman), who has returned to Mooseport to reside in his summer house during the messy divorce from his soon-to-be ex-wife Charlotte (Christine Baranski).

With Charlotte angling for more money, Cole decides to stick it out in Mooseport, where he is asked by the town’s bumbling officials to run for mayor. Through a series of contrivances, Handy himself tosses his hat into the ring and “Welcome to Mooseport,” wheezing to fill two excruciatingly long hours, follows each man’s fight to win the race—as well as Sally’s affection.

Rip Torn, Marcia Gay Harden, Fred Savage and Baranski try to add life to the film’s several subplots, but only Baranski scores a few laughs toward the end, when she’s allowed some screen time. Fairing less well is Romano, who might want to hold on to his television career, and Hackman, who is skating here.

With this sort of talent involved, it’s difficult to imagine why anyone agreed to make the movie, which is killed by its script. That they did so is their problem. That they decided to set it Maine becomes ours.

Grade: D