Director: Andy Cadiff
Cast: Mandy Moore, Matthew Goode, Jeremy Piven, Mark Harmon
Have I Seen it Before: Nope. I did watch First Daughter (2004) all the way through, for obvious reasons. I feel like that should count for something.
Did I Like It: Sometimes your wife has a bad day, and you say, “We can watch whatever you want.”
And she picks this.
And you already agreed to it.
So we watched it.
And there’s nothing terribly wrong with it.
The locations are nice and varied. The extended sequences in Prague use several of the same locations from Mission: Impossible (1996), one of my favorites. The scenes in Venice bring to mind films like Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019), and I’m more than a little embarrassed that was the only film shot in Venice which I could reach for in this moment... Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)! There, I found another one.
Mandy Moore is likable, and that will paper over a lot of blandness in a romantic comedy, and there is more than enough to go around here. I was starting to call out plot points for the film long before they came to pass.
The film is a McDonald’s cheeseburger. It has no inherent value on its own. It is an imminently predictable experience. But in the end, it’s fine. Damning with faint praise? Sure. But I could damn it with other things, so maybe the film should take the win.
But let’s get to my real criticism: Mark Harmon plays the fatherly President, and that’s fine. I probably prefer him as a Secret Service agent, but that’s what happens when you steep yourself in The West Wing. First Daughter, on the other hand, has Michael Keaton as the President, so frequent visitors to the site will know which film I give the win.
...yes, the reason, I watched First Daughter was because Keaton was the President. Obvious reasons.