The Movie: What would you do if you suddenly became the President of the United States? Well, that’s what happens to Dave Kovic, a regular guy with an uncanny resemblance to the president. The secret service hires Dave to be the president's double for matters of national security, but in an unexpected twist, he ends up having to continue his charade indefinitely!

I enjoyed Dave quite a bit. Near the beginning of the movie, I could see myself acting with the same child-like excitement as Kevin Kline exhibited while discovering all of the neat perks of being the president in his role as Dave. I also enjoyed watching the transition from his newfound role as the president going from being just a novelty, to something more serious, including all of the publicity, politics, and scandals that entails.

Quite a few real-life politicians made cameo appearances, as did Jay Leno and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Sigourney Weaver did a great job playing the first lady who (along with the rest of the world) was kept in the dark about this whole situation. Also, I liked Charles Grodin’s performance as Dave’s friend, Murray the CPA. I recommend this film to anyone looking for a smart and entertaining comedy.

The DVD: This dual-sided disc's dismal anamorphic widescreen video transfer was grainy and dirty with poor contrast. The image didn't have a whole lot of clarity, and it appeared that they tried to compensate by adding a lot of edge enhancement, which I think ended up making the graininess more visible. The sharpening also created some artifacts anywhere there was a close group of thin parallel lines. I did not check out the other side of the disc with the pan and scan version, but I'd expect more of the same. Audio was adequate, with 2 channel with Pro-Logic surround, but (as you'd expect from this kind of movie), was largely anchored in the center channel.

Special features included an anamorphically encoded theatrical trailer, along with a bunch of text-based features like cast bios, info about the various cameos, recreating of the White House and filming locations. There are also "Reel Recommendations", other movies the studio recommends you see, which usually ends up being really lame, but this time I was surprised when some of the recommendations also came with anamorphic widescreen trailers, namely Risky Business, Grumpy Old Men, and Grumpier Old Men.