The presidential and vice presidential candidates of an unnamed party, are killed when their campaign planes crash into each other less than two months before the election. This leaves the party in a quandary as they are facing a candidate that is a lock to win the election and nobody wants to get involved in an obvious losing effort with so little time before the election to mount a campaign. So seeking a replacement candidate, the party settles on Mays Gilliam an obscure Washington, D.C., alderman who has saved a woman and her cat from a burning building. He seems to have no chance of victory, but that’s beside the point as party boss Sen. Bill Arnot doesn't want him to win but instead set him up for winning the election in four years by promoting the first minority candidate in a major party. But Mays has a different strategy in mind, as he doesn’t know he is only meant to lose and set someone else up. But at first he can get nowhere because he is hampered down by scripts that aren’t meant to be anything but a sop for the listeners and don’t really deal with any real issues. So Mays bumbles through the first weeks of his campaign, following the instructions of his profoundly conventional campaign advisers, Geller and Debra Lassiter until his brother, a Chicago bail bondsman named Mitch asks him when he's going to start speaking his mind. When he does, the first thing he says is that he wants Mitch as his running mate and after that the race is soon to become a dogfight rather than the easy rollover Mays was suppose to be.

Some movies have vast potential to be clever, unique and funny this movie had all that potential but sadly wasted it one stupid clique after another. Now since Rock wrote, directed and starred in this movie I have a hard time believing he truly believed some of the drivel he was spouting at times. He must know that not all blacks are this typical straight from the hood, hip hopping, imbeciles he portrays them to be. This seemed like a movie some white screen writer would make as it seems to mock the minorities and lives in cliques that after awhile just make you cringe. I for one could not get past most of the stupidity of the film as was insulted by them mocking my intelligence in most issues including the fact Rock is not old enough to run for president. This is not to say the movie did not have its moments as some of the scenes were bust gutting hilarious that just seemed to get mired in a swamp of stupidity and cliques. Bernie Mac made the movie at times as he was clearly the funniest part of the movie and it seemed every time he was on the screen the nugget of humor that existed in this movie shined through. Too bad the movie is almost half over before he makes his first appearance and almost lost to the crowd already. The movie is still funny at times and would be worth a good rental but it does not live up to what it could be which is a shame as it could have been a very hilarious movie.
2.5 stars out of 5