OK I know this is a 1990's film involving politics but by god, it wasn't the best film I have ever seen. Alright we have American Legends like Michael J Fox, Michael Douglas and Martin Sheen to make this film look good, it really isn't. I felt that the film was dragging on and not really uplifting as any romantic movie should. I also felt that the casting should've been tweaked a bit. I thought Annette Bening shouldn't have been casted as the presidents love interest, I was actually thinking the little Secretary (cant remember the actresses name) with the glasses, would've been the best bet to have as his love interest. Bening is a good actress but definitely not for this role! I'm a little disappointed in this film, it needed to have been better but I think it had failed in my opinion......

The first review I read here called parts of it "sickly sweet", but I would have to disagree with that. There is no sickly to this movie, but yes it is sweet in parts. You can't have a love story without it...the reviewer also said there wasn't much political insight to the movie, but I would have to again disagree. Arbitrarily I would give about 45 or 50% to the political aspect. Michael Douglas and Richard Dreyfuss both give excellent performances to their respective characters. Andrew Shepherd (Douglas) is the laid back, yet intensely serious President (Democrat) who lost his wife shortly before his election, and all through the movie has to deal with a variety of national issues as well as a foreign one. One of the best lines in the film is when Shepherd and his advisors are talking about an air strike he ordered the day before that obliterated a Libyan military office building in downtown Tripoli, after ensuring they hit it when the least amount of people were in the building. After one of the advisors says his actions are very presidential, Shepherd responds that some janitor was probably cleaning up, not knowing he had just ordered the man killed..."That was the least presidential thing I do." A very poignant moment indeed, and an excellent insight into the inner turmoil any president must feel in those kinds of circumstances.Senator Bob Rumson (Dreyfuss) (Yes, a Republican), meanwhile, is actively campaigning for a presidential election coming up. He latches onto a political tactic of attacking the current presidents budding relationship with Sydney Ellen Wade (Annette Bening), a political activist who slowly falls in love with Shepherd. Without describing every minute, the relationship plays a significant part in the story certainly, but the life of a president also peeks through all throughout the movie. The speech President Shepherd delivers in a press conference in defense of Sidney as well as his own presidency is in my mind genius, and is the crowning achievement of the movie. It was perfectly scripted and delivered...if the movie doesn't quite live up to political reality, it does come close indeed. It has heavy weight supporting cast, as well as carefully selected secondary supporting cast. It is simply an excellent 2 1/2 hours, and I watch it every time I can.

What makes any movie someone's favorite? That isn't easy to define, and if I listed all my "favorites" it would make many scratch their heads because they are so varied. But this is one of my wife's favorites so we watched it yet again on this cold, rainy winter night the day after new year 2016. On DVD at home.Michael Douglas, about 50, is President Andrew Shepherd, going into the final year of his first term. He had become a widower shortly before the last election and he occupies the White House with his young teen daughter. he has a high approval rating, somewhere around 63% and is planning on pushing two pieces of legislation, one for gun-control and the other to reduce CO2 emissions to help arrest global warming.As a side note, here it is over 20 years later in the real world and the President is actually fighting for those same two issues, still meeting resistance from the manufacturing lobby and the gun lobby. Things don't change, do they?Anyway Annette Bening, in her mid-30s, is attractive and competent lobbyist Sydney Ellen Wade, working to help push through the environmental bill. When she first shows up at the White House for a meeting is thrown for a loop when the President, right after she is caught harshly criticizing him in the meeting, and he asks her to have lunch. Or something, Then she gets invited to be his date for a State Dinner honoring the French President.So the movie is about the President courting this smart and attractive lady while he and she work to get legislation passed. And at the same time dealing with insults and misinformation by Rumford, planning to run against the President.Martin Sheen has a good role as the Chief of Staff and Michael J. Fox, in his early 30s, as the speech writer. Good, fun movie. I like it also!

The lead actress is especially good and we've seen her in several good films. I've also often enjoyed films with Michael Douglas. Both attracted me to the film initially. However, this particular film is slanted in its political views and is pulled out by networks prior to every election it seems. The Democrat President, his daughter, his girlfriend (who speaks French!), and his staff and friends are all charming and attractive and smiling and happy, while the Republicans are gray-haired and grave faced. A primary Republican politico, played by Richard Dreyfus, is shown with gray-hair (he was young then), and there's a white spotlight shining down on him (subtle) as he sneers and makes insulting remarks about the opposition. I think bias in either political direction doesn't belong in films, but it will probably never end. To conclude: I don't believe Moderates or Republicans will like this level of manipulation by Hollywood.