BY MICHAEL GOODPASTER
Grassroots is an indie political comedy. I know a lot of indies get political, but few actually go at an actual political campaign. Here we follow Phil Campbell, an unemployed journalist who gets hooked into being the campaign manager for his friend Grant Cogswell. Phil is played by Jason Biggs and Grant is played by Joel David Moore. There is more to it than that. Biggs’ love interest is Lauren Ambrose. She wants him to take a new job and be realistic, but he wants to stick with his idealistic and overly ambitious friend. Phil works the system and Grant takes on the world and become legit contenders to the Seattle City Council. This movie isn’t a huge laugh per minute joke fest and it’s not a tear jerking drama. It’s a story. In this story we’re treated to a heart-filled, ambitious, and uplifting journey presented by entertaining and dedicated actors. Jason Biggs is known for “American Pie”, but he has been racking up a nice line of these independent comedies. He is becoming one of the better actors out there and it’s only a matter of time before one of these “little indies that could” gets him his just dues. In the meantime, I appreciate these performances. Joel David Moore was in Avitar and has had some notable roles, but this has to be his best acted performance so far. He is abrasively endearing and makes it easy to cheer on the impossible. He does tip-toe on the lines of "Tom Greens sings the bum-bum song", but it's in good nature. He is running against Cedric the Entertainer in a very well-acted performance. He plays the long time politician who has fallen out of touch and has become the stereotypical “evil politician”. His character could have been lame and a cliché, but he brought a nice amount of depth and questionable likability to it. These performances, the story, and the inspirational heart of this movie made for a fun time. It doesn’t pretend to be some super cutting edge indie or some pretentious George Clooney type of award bait movie. This is one of those small movies where you know there making of it is genuine. Someone had a story to tell and some awesome and talented people got together to tell it to the best of their ability. The result is a really good movie. It’s not going to blow anyone away and it’s not a movie to throw on at a party. Basically what I’m saying is that this is a “grown’ folk movie”. If you come across it don’t avoid it. You’ll be surprised how good this film was. B
|
