It was funny and rather amusing in places, but not enough to rescue it from true mediocrity. The parodies were way to obvious to be genuinely amusing; as they say in Spinal Tap, it’s a fine line between clever and stupid and American Dreamz unfortunately does parody a couple of notches better than Scary Movie rather than as brilliantly as Spinal Tap.
Even Willem Dafoe couldn’t salvage it. Willem Dafoe is like Gary Oldman and Samuel L. Jackson, i.e. someone who makes any movie exponentially better merely by being in it. He played the Chief of Staff as Dick Cheyney filtered through a live-action Mr Burns1, so that was amusing on many levels while simultaneously being incredibly frightening. And it had Dennis Quaid, Hugh Grant, and Mandy Moore, people whom I normally love in other movies. What gives? Or really, what compelled these people to be in this movie? Alas.
Take my experience and save yourself ten bucks. Go see Thank You For Smoking instead!
1He actually achieved hair worse than Shelly Runyon, no kidding.