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A Dreamworks release. Written/directed by/starring Chris Rock. Released to DVD on August 16, 2003.  When I learned that Chris Rock was going to be making a comedy about the flaws and idiosyncracies of the American electoral process, I was slightly bewildered. How could anyone expect to make a film that was any more comical than what really occurred just two short years ago in the 2000 presidential election? In the end though, Head of State’s writer/director/star, Rock, got off easy because no one could ever confuse Head of State with anything resembling comedy. Rock stars here as Mays Gilliam, a struggling Washington DC alderman. When the presidential candidates for an unnamed political party (presumably the Democratic party) die in a plane crash, the head of the party, Bill Arnot (James Rebhorn) sees Mays on TV having just rescued a woman from a soon-to-be-demolished building and decides that the charismatic Mays would be perfect as the new presidential challenger. Arnot’s reasoning for this extremely unorthodox move is that since the party has already lost the election, they should nominate a black candidate who would ensure that the party get the African-American vote in the next election. It’s not as shrewd as creating a $15 billion AIDS plan to get black voters, but probably more effective in the long run. With the nomination in hand, Gilliam starts calling it like it is and things progress (regress) from here. I am a big fan of writer/director/star Chris Rock’s stand-up comedy act and am, to a lesser degree, a fan of his work in other people’s films. Despite his oft blue comedy routines, Rock is a true student of human nature and one of the most spot-on observers of American culture. His dissection of topics as wide-ranging as the who makes the best boxers to the status of malls across the United States are pointed, brutally funny and very honest; the latter quality is usually what gives Rock’s material its humor. With this in mind, I was very surprised to see how much Head of State’s script strayed from Rock’s, well, rock-solid foundation.  With swearing and adult situations kept to a minimum in order to gain a PG-13 rating (and therefore bigger audiences), Rock trained his camera on smaller and decidedly dumber comedy. Instead of deriving the majority of comedy from the situations surrounding the electoral process, Rock instead focuses onto a host of ideas that have been seen ad nauseum in other mainstream comedies over the last ten years. These scenes involve older white people listening to rap music, May’s brother, Mitch (Bernie Mac) affectionately punching people at the most inappropriate times and Mays and Mitch taunting their opponent with mother jokes. Realism is quickly lost and with it absent, the satirical tone Rock originally wanted is missing as well. Head of State is a miserable, muddle of scenes; I hesitate to even call this conglomeration of celluloid a film. Rock direction is poor, highlighted by lightning quick zooms at different points in time and the final result a mess that easily challenges for the ‘worst of the year’ honor. The only thing separating Head of State from The Hunted is that The Hunted wanted to be taken seriously. This was so bad, it actually put me in a bad mood. | |||||
