FDR - AMERICAN BADASS!

It took me a long time to find this one. I don’t shop online or download, Blockbuster folded up its tents and left town a few months ago and I don’t do Netflix. At least not yet. So how did I at least get to see this one? Believe it or not, our local library system had it for check out on their shelves.


I’ve wanted to see this one for quite awhile, ever since I first saw the trailer for it online. I mean, really, how can you NOT love a movie in which President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (for you younger folks, he was our 32nd President and it is his profile you can see on the dimes in your pocket) rides around in a tricked-out, 007-like wheelchair blasting the ever-lovin’ CRAP out of Nazi Werewolves? Oh yeah, I’m on board for that, brother.

Barry Bostwick really chews up the scenery as FDR, making “at least my dick still works” comments throughout the movie. In one scene, he shouts to a crowd, “Marco” and then provides the response, “Polio”, himself. Puns – ya gotta love ‘em!

The wonderful Lin Shaye (a dear, sweet lady whom I’m lucky enough to be Facebook friends with) is Eleanor Roosevelt here and is yet another reason I wanted to see this film. Lin does not disappoint. This is another role for her which will cement her place in cinema history, aside from her turn as the nasty landlord in “Kingpin”.

As a supporting cast, we have the very funny Ray Wise as “Dougie” MacArthur, Bruce “D-Day” McGill as FDR’s right hand man and, in a pharmaceutically-enhanced scene, Kevin Sorbo as Abraham Lincoln (and no, he’s not there to kill vampires).

Not that this should stop you from seeing the film, but there were a couple of scenes involving a vase being used as a toilet that I, personally, could have done without. But, you know, shit happens. Just felt I should warn you in case you’re queasy about things of that nature. Other than that, everything else here is quite cricket.

Watch for the scene transition technique of the Presidential symbol advancing and retreating quickly like the bat symbol on the old Batman TV series; first time I saw it in the movie I about fell off the couch laughing.

Clever screenplay by Ross Patterson who also has a role in the movie as “Re-pube-lican” (as he puts it), Cleavon Buford, who helps the future Prez along on the campaign trail. He also has a very “accommodating” wife.

Fun, fun, fun – but NOT for the whole family. Nudity, bad language, blood, violence and drug use here; you know, things you’ll soon see in Disney films.

“The Splatting Nun” unhesitatingly recommends this one.