Review by All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
lost interest.
A creaky film vehicle for popular TV star
Ray Romano, Welcome to Mooseport is a blandly genial comedy with a weak premise and such safe, edgeless execution that it feels like mediocre television, despite the presence of such talents as
Gene Hackman and
Marcia Gay Harden. Featuring a mayoral race in a small town between a vain, but essentially good-hearted, former president (Hackman) and a spineless, nebbishy, but essentially decent, plumber (Romano), the movie is devoid of cutting characterizations and sharp dialogue. The tone of the films' attempt at comedic local color is set with the opening shot of an elderly man's buttocks as he jogs nude down Mooseport's main street. Things don't pick up much from there in terms of supporting characters, which include those mainstays of lazy comedy writing, a foul-mouthed old lady, and a fat, sassy black woman. The film is supposed to take place in rural Maine, but never generates any real sense of time or place. Worse yet, while it may have been a satire in some earlier, edgier incarnation, this is a movie about politics that doesn't have any. Romano is reasonably ingratiating on his sitcom, and the character he plays in the film -- friendly, but immature, and full of self-doubt -- isn't much of a stretch.
Maura Tierney is an appealing actress, but the problem, again, as with Harden and Hackman, is that no one has anything particularly interesting to say. Welcome to Mooseport is a generally inoffensive trifle, but the superior cast leaves one longing for something a little better. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide