Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

HaysMedia Keep humor legal, that's my motto. Those viewers with any memories of 1972 will enjoy the harmless situational humor in "Dick." A few time line errors in music (Van McCoy and others). Chances of the brother being drafted in 6/72 were remote as nation prepared for all-vol army July '73. Nonetheless a fun flick. Saul Rubinek as Kissinger. My favorite character actor Dan Hedaya as RMN. DC scenery. Will Farrell as Woodward. The eighteen minute gap explained-- at long last! Writing is sound. Actors apparently had fun. G.D. Spradlin as Bradlee. And so on. "Dick" has stood the test of time. Viewers will love it.(There-- that's ten lines. Really dumb policy-- causes a writer to pad review.)

mike48128 The "Dick" refers to Richard Nixon of course! What did you think it meant? With a fantastic cast including: Michelle Williams, Kirsten Dunst (both absolutely adorable as Arlene and Betsy), and Will Ferrell (as Bob Woodward). With Terri Garr. It plays like an overlong SNL sketch, because SNL was involved in the production. It "explains" the entire Watergate scandal and so much more. Of course it's all tongue-in-cheek.Two 15-year-old teenage girls mail a fan letter to Bobby Sherman, late at night, and unwittingly run into G. Gordon Liddy which ultimately sends the police dashing to uncover the Watergate break-in. When they go to the White House (school tour), Liddy recognizes them, ("they have the I-Q of yams") and Nixon himself asks the two girls to become the "official White House dog-walkers" for Checkers, to keep tabs on them. Her teacher refuses to believe this and says, more or less, that they both will go to Hell for telling such lies, but it's all true! Then they give all the details to two bumbling Washington Post reporters, including Nixon's staff shredding documents and packing bribe money for the people on the "Creep" list. All the major players, including Kissinger, are portrayed as either hotheads or complete idiots. Dan Hedaya, as Nixon, is devilishly funny and even looks like him. Even "Checkers" hates Nixon! There is 18.5 minutes missing on that infamous Nixon tape because Arlene sings "I honestly Love You" to "Tricky Dick", and then "Dick" erases it. The Russian Peace Accord went so well because the girls unwittingly baked up a batch of pot-laced "Hello Dolly" cookies which mellowed out everyone, including Brezhnev. The girls steal copies of the other White House tapes by sneaking into Haldeman's house. They use the cover name "Deep Throat" because Betsy's older brother Larry is into porn. For a full synopsis, go to "Roger Ebert.com". Marked down slightly for Nixon's anti-Semitic ranting and raving, and an F-bomb, which will certainly be cut for network and cable. A minor play-on-words as the girls blurt out comments about "Dick" at both a roller rink and the Washington Mall. The girls make American Flag hot pants outfits, and wave a banner at Dick as his helicopter flies over The Watergate and Washington for the very last time. The banner reads: "You Suck, Dick"! You will love the"1970's" musical soundtrack and costumes. It's a funny and clever satire and well worth your time, especially if you are over 35. This did not do well at the box office, due to its peculiar title. (BTW: That "blur" near the backside of "Arlene" is to mask a big "tramp- stamp" near her bottom.) Also, did anyone notice that part of "Checkers the dog" is not played by a cocker spaniel?

MBunge I don't understand how you can go through the time, effort and expense to make a motion picture and forget that a comedy needs jokes. It's like making an action flick where no one gets punched or a musical where no one sings or a tragedy where no one cries. Dick certainly has a humorous tone and some potentially funny premises but when it comes to honest-to-goodness jokes, there are very few here and most of them don't show up until the film is half over.Betsy and Arlene (Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams) are a couple of 15 year old girls who get caught up in the intrigue of the 1972 Nixon White House. At first, they just walk the President's dog and Arlene develops a school girl crush on Tricky Dick (Dan Hedaya). When they inadvertently discover Nixon's dark side, the girls turn into Deep Throat, the inside source that fed Woodward and Bernstein (Will Farrell and Bruce McCulloch) information on the Watergate cover up.Aside from a weirdly large number of double entendres about Nixon's first name and Ferrell and McCulloch firing off bits of shtick every moment they're on screen like they were signaling for someone to come and rescue them from this desert island of comedy, there's very little to laugh about in Dick. That's not the fault of the cast, though there are a few times when they give performances that could have been acceptable in a docu-drama. These actors are just not given enough to work with. For example, there's a scene where Arlene has a romantic fantasy about Nixon sweeping her off her feet. The idea provokes a snicker but it never goes anywhere or leads to anything. Instead of ending on a big laugh, the dream sequence merely trickles away. Or when Betsy and Arlene realize the truth about Nixon after hearing an audio tape of him ranting and cussing and kicking his dog, the scene ends with Betsy saying "I don't think the President of the United States should be recording conversations like that". The people who made Dick consider THAT to be a big punchline.Dunst and Willams are bright and bubbly but, as promising as this concept seems, it's a big, fat nothing burger of a film. Unless you're a hard core Nixon hater who can never get enough of seeing him mocked, you won't enjoy this Dick.

Enoch Sneed By this I mean I have studied the Nixon presidency and Watergate from the outside. I loved 'All the President's Men', 'Washington: Behind Closed Doors' (Jason Robards as "Richard Monckton") and, of course, the Oliver Stone 'Nixon'.I think it is a wonderful fantasy to have some of the most critical events in recent US history revolve around two ditsy teenage girls (all that squealy, jumpy-up-and-down stuff really got on my nerves, I had to tell myself they were acting in character, after all "I have met yams with more going on upstairs than these two"). The girls actually trace the same arc as the American public in the early 70's, from unquestioning belief in Nixon to realising he's a paranoid bigot with a "potty mouth" (and he doesn't even like dogs).In the course of the film our heroines manage to influence global diplomacy and bring about the downfall of their former hero (the adolescent crush on Nixon is excruciatingly funny). We even learn why there is an 18.5 minute gap in the President's tapes.The performances are great fun. Dan Hedaya is sublime as Nixon ("young people trust me" - oh, boy!), all scowling and growling. Saul Rubinek as Kissinger and Harry Shearer as G. Gordon Liddy make great caricatures of the real thing. The 'Woodstein' partnership is excellent, too, a relationship born of an irritated recognition of mutual need. Only Dave Foley's Haldeman seems too bland and unthreatening. I regretted not having a take on Howard Hunt.Having outsiders act as participants or witnesses to history is not a new idea, of course, but in this case I found myself almost wishing this could be true.