I’ve been making my way through Jack Lemmon movies this fall and I am behind due to a family crisis I’ve been dealing with.

Today I am writing about  My Fellow Americans (1996) with Jack and James Garner portraying former presidents who get caught up in a scheme by the current administration who is trying to hide some weird business deal that happened when the current president was a vice president.

The movie also stars Dan Ackroyd and Lauren Bacall.

One thing I can say about this movie is it is not one of Lemmon’s Oscar Award winning performances.

It was a ridiculous, at times raunchy, jaunt of craziness that was a fun escape but not something I’d probably watch again.

I watched this movie with my Gen Z son and had to say things like, “Well, that’s the kind of stuff people said in the 90s…before everyone was so sensitive.” Or, “Yes, people used to wear their hair like that.” Or, “Yes, that song was very popular back then. It hasn’t aged well.”

He laughed at my comments and said he wasn’t worried about those things. He and I found the movie to be a fun, but sort of stupid, romp.

So Jack Lemmon portrays President Russel Kramer and James Garner portrays President Matt Douglas.

Kramer is a Republican and Douglas is a womanizing Democrat.

In the beginning of the movie we see them running against each other and defeating each other. Then we see William Haney, Kramer’s former vice president defeat Douglas.

Haney’s vice president, Ted Matthews, is considered an idiot and embarrassment to the administration (which I am sure is a reference to Dan Quyale).

We flash forward to three years and Kramer and Douglas are navigating their lives as ex-presidents. Kramer is writing another book about himself and Douglas is in the middle of a divorce. At the same time, the Democratic Party learns about Olympia, which is a code name for bribes that a defense contractor paid Hanley when he was vice president.

Douglas is asked to investigate and is told that if he does, the Democrats will support him for another run for president. Douglas agrees to help.

Haney and his chief of staff, though, are hard at work to frame Kramer for the scandal.

The two former presidents eventually will end up on the run across the country when someone tries to kill them to get them out of the way. Viewers spend the majority of the movie trying to figure out who is trying to get rid of them and watching their crazy antics as they try to get back to Washington and stop whatever nefarious things are happening.

Filmmakers originally wrote the James Garner role for Lemmon’s longtime movie partner, Walter Matthau. Matthau had to back out for health reasons, though.

Garner was glad to be the second choice for the role, saying he and Lemmon had wanted to work together for years.

While this is a “political” movie it was kept more apolitical with no real life presidents mentioned and supposedly none of the characters based on any real life administrations. Ha. I call garbage on that since the vice president character in this movie was clearly based on Dan Quayle as I mentioned above.

In his memoir, Garner said he enjoyed working with Lemmon but felt director Peter Segal thought he was a genius but didn’t really know what he was doing.

I thought it was interesting that a lot of this movie was filmed in Ashville, North Carolia.

This movie didn’t get a ton of great reviews when it came out and it still doesn’t but if you are looking for a fun escape (if you don’t  mind some crude jokes) then it might be a good movie to try.

Up next I’ll be writing about The Odd Couple.

I’m going to cut this feature a little short since I missed almost an entire month so my revised movie list for this feature is:

Phffft (September 18)

It Should Happen To You (September 24)

The Fortune Cookie (Oct 2)

The Apartment (Oct. 8)

My Fellow Americans (Nov. 11)

The Odd Couple (Nov. 13)

Irma Dey Deuce (November 20)

Save the Tiger (November 27)