The Case of Liberty v. Daughter

A friend of mine went to high school with the daughter of a U.S. President. This always intrigued me, and I never shied away from asking my friend the big questions like; Was she cool? Did your mom offer the secret service agents something cold to drink when they came over? Does the movie theater in the White House look like it does on “The West Wing?" Even though my friend answered all of these questions, I still felt like I didn’t really understand what it was like to be a young girl growing up on Pennsylvania Ave. Luckily, within like the last year, two major studies on the subject have been released in the forms of First Daughter and Chasing Liberty. They gave me the insight I so desperately needed. I have watched them both and chosen one to review, so you don’t have to make the tough decision on your own.

While Katie Holmes’s unpregnant, monotone, clench-jawed, slightly lazy-eyed portrayal of a young girl trying to balance the pressures of politics with the pressures of frat parties in First Daughter is everything you’d expect from the future mother of our alien overlord, Mandy Moore’s Chasing Liberty is somehow both a more Grieco and more watchable movie.

Chasing Liberty
The virginally pure, perfect-skinned Mandy Moore plays Anna (call sign, Liberty) who is tired of her overprotective Presidential father who, thank God, is played by the incomparable Mark Harmon. Seriously, the man is in Summer School and he is the uncle of Matthew and Gunnar “After the Rain” Nelson. Anyway, to shake off the shackles of tyranny Moore goes to Europe to party with the daughter of the French ambassador who is how you say, a tramp. While in Prague, sweet little Mandy ditches her secret service detail and runs off with a dreamy Brit. Turns out he’s actually an agent working undercover for the President who wants his daughter to feel like she is out on her own. After Mandy takes off her clothes and goes skinny dipping (yes, I feel like a dirty old man), Harmon sends two agents, Jeremy Piven and the lovely Annabella Sciorra, to bring her in. Instead of going along, Mandy flees and ends up dragging the Brit across Europe. Eventually they fall in love, with Piven and Sciorra playing Benedict and Beatrice to their Claudio and Hero. Or is it Touchstone and Audrey to their Orlando and Rosalind? I can never keep those crazy lovers straight. Anyway, after they totally do it, Mandy and the Brit head to Berlin for the “Love Parade.” Call me an asshole, but parades in Germany just seem sinister even if they do have the word “love” in the title. While there, Mandy discovers the Brit’s true identity and she starts talking about “trust” and other nonsense that 18 year-old girls believe in. The Brit responds with the old it-started-out-as-a-job-but-something-happened-along-the-way-
and-now-I’m-in-love-with-you speech, but Mandy’s not having it, so she takes off and starts what is like the ninth chase scene of the film. She gets mixed up with some dickhead American tourists and some Eurotrash, but the Brit saves her before things can turn ugly. Mandy flies off in a helicopter and the two young lovers are parted before they can reconcile. Don’t shed those tears yet. Months later, Mandy finds out that the Brit quit his job as an agent because he was “more passionate about something else.” She goes to London to find him, and they kiss as Nessun Dorma swells in the background. Now you can cry.

Look, there’s no reason to ever see Chasing Liberty, but I’m gonna say this. Piven raps in Hebrew, there’s some Tom Petty during the opening credits, Harmon is the smoothest cat this side of Redford, and I don’t know if it’s just my current “getting back in touch with my Italian roots” thing, but Sciorra seems to have gotten much hotter with age. There’s also something so non-threatening about Mandy Moore that I just can’t help but like her. I’m going to give it 2-Griecos (see ratings), but it’s a hey-that’s-alright kind of 2-Griecos, not an I- can’t-believe-I-sat-through-this-shit-and-they-didn’t-kill-off-Ed Burns kind of 2-Griecos.

Ratings

1-Grieco: There’s probably a re-run of “Full House” on. Watch that instead.

2-Griecos: Washed-up stars, watered-down action, and my friends are at work. What the hell.

3-Griecos: Bad religious symbolism abounds and the gunplay is damn near balletic. My Friday night is looking up.

4-Griecos: If Looks Could Kill. All I’m sayin’.

**If ever I should come across a film that rates 0-Griecos, may God have mercy on your soul.