FDR: American Badass

The Puffy ROSSMAN

This is one of the most absolutely amazing things I've ever seen in my entire strange life. This movie, FDR: American Badass, could have been — hell, it SHOULD have been — the greatest train wreck in cinematic history, but instead it transcends its own insanity and becomes a goddamn fucking masterpiece!

This is what Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter should have been. I was wrong about AL:VH in hindsight... I had originally thought that the best way to tell a tale like that (the story of one of America's greatest leaders facing a supernatural threat) was to play shit for serious... No. FDR: American Badass proves that something as ludicrous as a crippled president fighting an international werewolf threat from the seat of a fully armed wheelchair needs to be acted out as if the lead actors got the script, breezed through it once, then got drunk and just fucking winged it. Beyond that, there's no other way to explain what occurs during this 90-minute film, and no other way to praise it than to use multi-syllabic adjectives upon adjectives that basically suck this movie's dick like a $2,000/hour whore with a 9-inch tongue.

So, what's FDR: American Badass about, you ask like an unpatriotic punk who flunked all his US History classes and keeps getting FDR confused with JFK? God, you just make me want to punch you in the kidneys and put out a cigar in your goddamn eye... It's about the 32nd president of the United States of America (one Franklin Delano Roosevelt) as he faces some incredible life choices, battles polio, goes on to become the leader of the free world who then leads America out of the Great Depression and into World War II, and fights a werewolf Hitler.

It all begins on a hunting trip in 1931 with New York Governor FDR, his top advisor Louis, and two other good friends getting attacked by a Polio-carrying Nazi werewolf in the woods just outside Poughkeepsie, NY. Frank loses two of his amigos, but in a desperate hand-to-claw battle eventually takes the fascist lycanthrope down himself. Unfortunately he gets bitten in the legs and gets the Polio from the creature before he ends its anti-freedom-loving life.

This attack leads Frank and Louis to profanely think that something bad is about to go down on a global scale, and so FDR decides to run for the presidency in order to get to the bottom of shit.

We follow the legend as he stumps for the highest office in the land and tells dirty jokes across the US, founds a hydrotherapy center in Warm Springs, GA to help battle his Polio (and bang the proprietor's wife), and eventually lands in the White House, which causes the most glorious celebration of a tight-knit family since George Bailey comes back from never existing at the end of It's a Goddamn Wonderful Life! Then shit gets real.

General Dougie Mac[Arthur] and that asshole Einstein inform Frank of a dastardly plot being enacted by Werewolf Hitler, Werewolf Mussolini (and to a much lesser extent, Werewolf Hirohito and his *snicker* sake reserves) to take over the planet! Then WWII begins and we find it's all up to Frank and his motley crew (including his new bros Eisenhower, Churchill, and Kevin Sorbo as Abraham Lincoln) to stop fascist tyranny from destroying the world as we know it, and werewolfizing every man, woman, and child on Earth!

I simply cannot explain to you just how well this insanely stupid-sounding story actually works. Not just "works," but actually soars! It's all due to the script, actors, and the (cheap as all fuck) sets. Nothing is sacred or taken seriously in the least, and I love the shit out of every decision made to bring this tale to fruition. I love that FDR is treated as a kind of a loveable douchebag who (after getting the Polio from that werewolf attack) is only concerned if his cawk still works, and he gets his jollies from causing his wife and friends to almost puke by showing them his lil' gimpy Polio legs. I love that Dougie Mac has no qualms about killing innocent college kids just because they drank werewolf-blood-contaminated beer. I love that everybody treats Einstein like an asshole pariah just because. I love that Kevin Goddamn Sorbo plays Abraham Lincoln! I love the three-way phone calls between the racist caricatures of Werewolf Hitler, Werewolf Mussolini, and Werewolf Hirohito! I love Frank's "freestyling" fireside chats with the American people! But most of all I love the lines of dialogue! Every other sentence spoken had me either chuckling or full-out laughing my ass off.

Examples: "But that's Woodrow Wilson for you; he doesn't give a fuck!" "Why me!? I'm fat and weak!" "Shut the fuck up, Einstein!" "Fuck Polio!" "Sorry, Eleanor, you're going to have to sit on Frank's lap... There's a dead Nazi werewolf in the trunk." "(Werewolf tears into a man, rips out his heart, shows it to him before he dies, then hurls it into the face of Frank's top advisor, Louis) What the shit?! Why even spend the time to do that?!"
I'm laughing just thinking about the lines in this thing... And people are looking at me.

In the end I find that I have to look past the cheapness and awfulness of this production (which are actually part of this movie's charm) and give FDR: American Badass 5 out of 5 Stars of Spangled Glory! It is not a "good" movie — don't get me wrong — but the amount of fun that everybody involved in its production is obviously having (most especially the actors themselves) is totally infectious, and I can't remember laughing harder at anything since the first time I saw Brain Donors.

DOCTOR DAVE

Ah! Good ole "Steel Wheels" Roosevelt! The brilliant man who got us out of the Great Depression by sucking up to crooked unions, forcing social programs upon all of us that never worked (and started the ballooning of our national budget that's in the trillions today), and getting us stuck in a global conflict that killed millions of our young men! The man who kowtowed to Uncle Joe Stalin, letting the despot utterly destroy democracy in Eastern Europe and then Asia, which led to two more bloody and senseless wars and almost-missiles in Cuba. And let's not forget his introduction of the idea of "deficit spending." Yes! Let's make a movie about him that turns him into a chain-smoking, alcoholic, awesome hero based on yours truly!... Hollywood, you make me sick sometimes... I take that back, Hollywood, you make me sick ALL the time.

Why not for your next project make a movie based around how great Andrew Jackson was because he stood up to those evil Indians! Or how about one where Jimmy Carter is a hero because he let the Iranians walk all over us and had a brother who invented Billy Beer... Which tastes like horse piss by the way. Or I know! Let's call a movie "Nixon: The Greatest American Non-Crook President!" At least he opened China and ended the war in Vietnam...

Bah! Hollywood greedy bastards!

Alternate history that I've actually lived through kind of puts a fire in my undies. There are so many great Americans that I would have loved to have seen killing Nazi werewolves, why choose that gimpy FDR? I give this movie 2 thumbs down. Bah, to HELL with this!

CARL

Meh, this movie was alright. It was kind of like watching a profanity-laced episode of the 1960s Batman TV show.

It had some good shit in it, but all in all it was just too fucking lame. Lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllame! Just like FDR's legs! Badda-bing! The humor was too forced, the violence too comical, and the whole feel of the thing was like it was made in some 20 year-old's parents' basement. I didn't hate this piece of shit, but wish it was more ass kicking and less butt-fucking jokes (which have their place to be sure).

I give this movie a C+. It was pretty bad, but not as bad as say Major League 2 or Cabin Boy. Really, what is?