Dick
(1999)
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 1 Hour and 34 Minutes
Reviewer: Erik
Grade: B"Dick" has a lot of fun taking a historical event, full of unanswered questions, and trying to answer them in the most absurd of ways. If you're looking for facts on the Watergate Scandal, go to your local library. If you want to be entertained, keep reading.
Betsy Jobs (Kirsten Dunst) and Arlene Lorenzo (Michelle Williams) are two airhead high-schoolers who get mixed up in the Watergate Scandal one night when they run out to mail a letter to the "Win a date with Bobby Sherman contest." Upon return to the Watergate Hotel (where Lorenzo lives), the break-in is taking place, and they run into G. Gordon Liddy (Harry Shearer), who questions them until they run away screaming.
On a school trip to the White House, the girls run into Liddy again. This time Liddy and Bob Haldeman (Dave Foley) take the girls behind closed doors for questioning on what they may or may not have seen. They meet Richard Nixon (Dan Hedaya), who offers them the position of "White House dog-walkers" so he can keep them close and find out what they know.
There are a lot of funny supporting characters, including Saul Rubinek as Henry Kissinger, Jim Breuer as John Dean and Foley as Bob Haldeman. Particularly funny is Foley, who gets some big laughs with a great haircut and some humorous facial expressions, although his role is a small one.
Through the course of the movie, the girls stumble their way through (and influence) some of the biggest historical events of the time period, they grow enamored with Nixon (especially Lorenzo), then they learn the ugly truth about Nixon. And when they do, they turn to Bob Woodward (Will Ferrell) and Carl Bernstein (Bruce McCullough), the two journalists who broke the infamous story.
Although these two characters come into the movie late, they're a real treat, shown as a couple of immature little kids, fighting over the phone, stepping on each other's toes and miraculously turning up at each other's secret meetings with anonymous sources.
Not all the jokes in "Dick" work. The opening sequence (a TV interview) feels awkward. And some scenes end with a little pop instead of a big laugh. But, despite that, this cross between "Nixon" and "Dumb & Dumber" has a lot of fun taking its ludicrous stab at history.