FDR: American Badass! Reviewed

If you start with the premise that werewolf bites cause polio and decide that the Axis leaders were actually werewolves, it's not hard to think up a plot where polio victim Franklin Delano Roosevelt leads the charge into WWII to eliminate the werewolf threat.

How you feel about that idea pretty much determines how much you'll enjoy FDR: American Badass! Writer/producer/co-star Ross Patterson (we never heard of him before, either) managed to sign up what amounts to a cult movie all-star cast that includes Barry Bostwick (The Rocky Horror Picture Show), Bruce McGill (Animal House), Ray Wise (24 and Twin Peaks) and Kevin Sorbo (Hercules).%embed1%

Everyone's having a great time and obviously thinks the idea is hilarious. Wise's General Douglas MacArthur presents FDR with a wheelchair kitted out with machine guns that shoot silver bullets. Sorbo plays Abraham Lincoln in an extended hallucination brought on by a joint FDR gets from a secret humidor left in the Oval Office by George Washington.

If you're the kind of person who's going to bring up the fact that Washington never set foot in the White House, you're not going to enjoy this one.  The whole  enterprise takes about 90 minutes and is packed with the kind of jokes that seem funnier when glazed over at 2am with a group of like-minded people. There's some pretty tasteless running jokes; it definitely earns its R rating. That's either a caution or a recommendation: decide for yourself.

It's out now on DVD and available on demand from most cable companies.