my fellow americans is a movie that at first glance looks to have little substance ( or a movie that we’ve all seen a million times ) , two lifetime rivals thrown together and then the fun begins .
this is exactly what happened in this movie , but fortunately , they managed to do it in an interesting and funny way .
the movie starts with a quick ( and i do mean quick ) glance of two presidents russell kramer ( jack lemmon ) and matt douglas ( james garner ) .
william haney ( dan aykroyd ) and ted matthews ( john heard ) are the new president and vice president .
there is a scandal that arises involving a kickback from a contractor and haney is positive that he buried that years ago .
he finds a scapegoat in kramer and now everyone wants kramer and douglas dead .
this movie was exceptional for many reasons .
one being that they found people ( lemmon and garner ) that have good chemisty together .
they worked very well as a unit and they mirrored each other perfectly , one being a ladies man and one being the old man ( i’ll let you fiqure which is which ) .
also , they found people that know their parts as govenment officials well .
it seemed to me that garner played almost exactly the same role that he played in the distinquished gentleman ( except then he was a congressman ) .
experience counts for a lot ! !