neumu [ cinematronic ]




	Welcome To Mooseport
	Donald Petrie Gene Hackman, Ray Romano, Marcia Gay Harden, Maura Tierney, Christine Baranski, Fred Savage, Rip Torn 2004		Jerry Seinfeld has the right idea. Despite his sitcom success, the comedian knows he's no actor. He played a variation of his real self on TV, and, since the show's demise, he hasn't made a futile attempt to be a big-screen leading man. Substandard stand-up Ray Romano is not so clever. The undeserved longevity of his strident, noxious TV series "Everybody Loves Raymond" inspired someone to make him the star of a movie: the tedious, illogical, humor-challenged "Welcome to Mooseport." This waste of celluloid, lamely imitating populist comedies made in the '30s by Capra and Sturges, should prove that not everybody loves Raymond. It also besmirches distinguished actor and occasional B-movie hack Gene Hackman, who plays Romano's adversary. Romano, a non-acting personality void, is useless as Handy, a hardware store owner in picturesque Mooseport, Maine — summer home of popular, recently retired U.S. President Monroe Cole (Hackman). Plagued by a greedy ex-wife (Christine Baranski), Cole wants to retire in Mooseport, write a book and hit the lecture circuit, but he's attracted to Handy's long-suffering girlfriend Sally (Maura Tierney) and wooed by the town fathers to take on the vacated position of mayor. Hardy runs against Cole for mayor, making the election a winner-take-all (including Sally) proposition. Recall it.