Playing Politics: A weird little mess of a comedy

Is this thing worth your Saturday?

Honestly? Maybe not. Unless you’re a die-hard fan of silent-era style slapstick or just really curious about what happens when someone decides to make a movie about a guy lip-syncing his way to the White House. If you want something that makes a lick of sense, skip it. If you want to see someone sweat through a suit while trying to figure out how a tape recorder works, you’re in luck. 🗳️

The whole premise is just absurd. Oopie is the kind of character who probably trips over his own shadow, yet he’s somehow running for the highest office in the land. Allen Rose carries the weight of the film, and you can tell he’s having a blast, even if the script is thinner than a piece of paper.

The technical side of things is… something. There’s a scene where the recorder starts playing at the wrong speed, and it’s genuinely funny—not because it’s high art, but because it feels like a genuine mistake that they decided to leave in the final cut. You can almost see the actors trying not to break character when the audio starts screeching. It reminds me a bit of the awkward pacing in Midnight Gambols, where the energy just kind of dies for five minutes for no reason.

Wait, what just happened?

• The lip-syncing is consistently terrible, which I think is the point?
• The background extras in the rally scene look like they’d rather be literally anywhere else.
• There’s a weird moment with a hat that I still don’t understand.

It’s not as sharp as Habeas Corpus, which actually had something to say. This just wants to run around and scream about politics without actually knowing what politics are. It’s got that same frantic, slightly desperate energy you get in Her Sturdy Oak.

Sometimes, the movie just stops. Like, the characters get to a door, they stand there for a beat too long, and then they walk through. It’s weirdly hypnotic. I found myself counting the seconds on the wall clock in the background of the campaign office instead of listening to the dialogue. That’s usually a bad sign, but here, it was the most interesting part.

Look, it’s not going to change your life. It’s just a weird, scrappy little movie that exists. Sometimes that’s enough. Other times, you just want to turn it off and go get a sandwich. I did both. 🥪