FDR: American Badass! Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		3.0
Audio		2.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.0

FDR: American Badass! Blu-ray Movie Review

It's a catchy title for sure. Anything after that's gravy. And there's not much gravy.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman February 9, 2017

See that wild jumble of scratched and clawed disfigurement at the bottom of that barrel? That's the remnants of FDR: American Badass!' scraping thereof. It's an absurd low-budget Z-movie that's a riff on Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and probably influenced by any of the modern mashups out on the market, things like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (the book version thereof, anyway, which was released several years before this film). Regardless of what inspired it, the movie is a quintessential example of junk-grade cinema, an ultra-low-budget, low-brow movie that imagines President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a potty-mouth, sex-obsessed, Nazi werewolf-hunting, wheelchair-bound playboy. And it's actually kind of fun. In spurts. Very short spurts. The movie is more tedious than it is entertaining, but it's endlessly enthusiastic, eager to push boundaries of taste with historical material that's not really delicate so many decades removed from when it happened but still important, world-shaping to this day, and revered by modern society. And it's gleeful in pulling out all the stops its budget and limited script allow.

POTUS parties hard!

On a hunting trip with a few friends, Senator Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Barry Bostwick) is attacked by a werewolf. Before it's killed, the senator is bit on the leg. He contracts polio as a result, leaving him wheelchair bound but, much to his surprise and contentment, still "fully functional" in the ways that matter most. He's encouraged to run for President, and despite his disability, he wins handily. But his time in office is defined by the growing werewolf threat in Europe. The head werewolves in Germany, Italy, and Japan have made a pact and are marching across the globe. FDR has no choice but to join the war effort...literally. It turns out that the only hope the world has against werewolf terror is himself and his trusty silver bullet-shooting wheelchair.

If it weren't for a few name actors in the opening minutes, one could be forgiven for thinking that FDR: American Badass! was a backyard movie, made with an off-the-shelf camera and a few friends hamming it up before, during, and after an attack at the hands of a "werewolf," which looks more like a man wearing a Halloween mask than a real scary movie monster. The film's production values do tighten up a bit as it moves along, but the sense of cheapness definitely permeates the entire flick. But it embraces the cheapness, understands its limitations, and makes up for its lack of good visuals or production values with an over-the-top performance that would put Olympic pole vaulters to shame. It's wholly embracing of its mad scientist machinations and, despite some long stretches of unnecessary tedium, has a knack for finding that magical balance that turns would-be Z-grade trash into something of a treasure amongst the dregs of low-rent cinema.

Speaking of the cast, FDR: American Badass! actually assembles a fairly potent roster of recognizable character actors in leading roles. One can only wonder what favors were called in or how, otherwise, actors like Barry Bostwick, Lin Shaye, and Bruce McGill were wrangled into this one. No matter, they lend some much-needed gravitas to the film and elevate it just enough from the dregs of its peers to draw the audience and keep it interested for the duration...at least the duration minus all of the film's extra-long, needlessly drawn-out scenes. Truly, the film could have been trimmed to half its runtime and worked much better. Much of it amounts to little more than lengthy, go-nowhere character scenes that drag out a gag or stretch on only to allow the actors to spit out a barrage of brain-dead, innuendo-laden lines that would have the real FDR and compatriots rolling in their graves. The film admittedly thrives on turning history on its head and making caricatures of historically significant individuals -- which stretches to include the likes of Douglas MacArthur, Dwight Eisenhower, Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, and Abraham Lincoln -- but it really pushes the limits and often makes FDR more of a general jerk and foul-mouthed fool.

The film does absolutely nothing with its villainous werewolves, either. Outside of that initial first attack, their screen time is primarily limited to various telephone conversations with one another from within their own (very spartan) military bunkers. There's a gag in which they (who are supposed to be Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito) murder their telephone operators more or less out of the blue, and that's really it. Despite the box art, there's very little in the way of actual action in the film. The vast majority of it plays out off-screen, FDR doesn't wield the Tommy gun in a meaningful manner, and in fact the film couldn't be further from its action if it tried while still keeping it on Earth. FDR: American Badass! is predominantly a joke movie, then, driven by its crude humor and turning the heroes from the World War II era into boozing, foul-mouthed, womanizing slobs, essentially. A more direct Action movie in the style of Nazis at the Center of the Earth might have been more fun, like the box suggests, with werewolves invading the White House or something. FDR does get himself that chair depicted on the box art, but it doesn't actually do much, making it a microcosm of the whole movie around it: a whole lot of promise and not much to show for it, at least not at 90 minutes in length.

FDR: American Badass! Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

FDR: American Badass! is obviously a low-budget production, and its limited resources show in its 1080p transfer. The movie releases to Blu-ray via the dreaded BD-R format, unsurprising given its low-rent, small-studio nature. The picture proper is OK, certainly not a looker but a clear step above standard definition. Despite a bit of macroblocking and noise throughout, it holds up with enough strength in clarity to please at a very basic level. Details are decent enough. Image clarity is never seriously wanting, but the image can never find any complex density or intimacy in flesh tones or environments. Even werewolf make-up/masks/wigs don't show much serious texturing. Fortunately, no smudgy corners are present. Colors are likewise acceptably unremarkable. There's no sense of serious pop or brilliance, even on some assorted patriotic reds, whites, and blues, but they're never struggling for acceptable density or accuracy, either. Neither black levels nor flesh tones raise any alarms. This is the very definition of a meh Blu-ray: it has some source limitations and an unremarkable transfer that leaves it as neither a memorable presentation nor a disaster of an image. Note that the back of the box lists the movie's aspect ratio as 2.35:1, but the film is presented at what appears to be a native 1.78:1.

FDR: American Badass! Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

FDR: American Badass!' Blu-ray packaging promises a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack but the movie is instead presented in a Dolby Digital 2.0 configuration. It's unsurprisingly unremarkable, pushing to the center and lacking any kind of distinguishing clarity and quality. Music struggles to find any sense of spread. Notes are a bit muddled and wanting, too. A few gunshots fail to generate any excitement. Ambient effects are of minimal value, filling in some mild environmental details -- seagulls around a pier around the 20-minute mark -- but never creating a sense of place or width along the front. Dialogue at least finds its place in a "phantom center" positioning. While raw clarity comes up lacking, general vocal definition is fine, as is prioritization above any surrounding, and relatively puny, effects or music.

FDR: American Badass! Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of FDR: American Badass! contains no supplemental content.

FDR: American Badass! Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

One can only wonder how more modern history will be treated many decades into the future. If FDR: American Badass! (and Idiocracy) is any indication, nothing will be too sacred to touch as soon as the "too soon?" question drifts into memory, which is on a shorter and shorter leash with every passing day, anyway. The movie isn't anything to write home about. Ultra-low-budget, absurd, but strangely well cast and entertaining in spurts when it's not dragging on, it's an interesting little bit of grossly over-the-top revisionist history that's worth a watch with some friends and some liquor. This Blu-ray release of FDR: American Badass! comes on a BD-R disc. Video and audio are of an expectedly low quality, but still passable. No extras are included. Rent or pick it up very cheap as a party movie.