Powered by Google
Home
New This Week
Listings
8 days
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Art
Astrology
Books
Dance
Food
Hot links
Movies
Music
News + Features
Television
Theater
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Classifieds
Adult
Personals
Adult Personals
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Archives
Work for us
RSS
   

CHASING LIBERTY

BY TOM MEEK

Every father rues the day his day his daughter begins to date, but what if you’re the president of the United States? That’s the premise behind this clunky romantic comedy that’s clearly inspired by the tribulations of Chelsea Clinton and the Bush twins (not to mention Roman Holiday and My Date with the President’s Daughter). Pop icon Mandy Moore plays first daughter Anna Foster (code-named Liberty by the Secret Service), who’s had date after date squashed by the intrusion of "secret servants." When the family jets off to Prague on a good-will tour, Anna gets fed up and goes AWOL. She catches on with a hunky photographer (Matthew Goode), and the seeds of romance are sown; what she doesn’t know is that he’s a European operative in cahoots with her dad (Mark Harmon). Moore does have moments of effervescent charm, but there’s no chemistry between the two leads — Goode is the embodiment of the British stiff upper lip — even though director Andy Cadiff insists that they’re a match made in heaven. The shots of Venice and Prague provide the real romance, and Annabella Sciorra and Jeremy Piven deliver the comic punch as two combative agents with a high degree of sexual tension between them. (120 minutes)


Issue Date: January 9 - 15, 2004
Back to the Movies table of contents








home | feedback | masthead | about the phoenix | find the phoenix | advertising info | privacy policy | work for us

 © 2000 - 2007 Phoenix Media Communications Group