First Daughter

Okay, I am very aware that this movie is pretty awful. And funny enough, I don't care for Katie Holmes or Marc Blucas. But I can't help but watch this when I'm alone and no one else knows. Michael Keaton is good as always. And even though the whole storyline is completely ridiculous, there are some very sweet moments. The biggest problem with this movie is simply the very weak script. However, the good news is that regardless of the script and some of the actors, it can't help but have some guilty charms. I don't think I would recommend this to anyone who doesn't have genuine guilty pleasures. Real ones. Like that George Lazenby is their favorite Bond. But it's a cute movie that I think younger tweens might enjoy.

Katie Holmes plays the president's daughter who decides to go to a normal college to have a normal college experience.

There she has to contend with room mates, drink, overly tight security, her father's presidential campaign and, of course, a boy.

As you probably expect this is wholesome light weight fodder with not too many shocks.

What is unusual is the amount of love and professionalism put into this.

Despite its rather whimsical premise the story is very lean and structured - performances are good and production is solid.

Nobody working on this expected it to win any Oscars but it is nice to see people put the effort in.

The result is a charming, fun Sunday afternoon movie that is much better than a lot of the other grandiose movies surrounding it on Netflix.

The best parts of this movie - in my estimation is watching Katie Holmes run around with that tiny blue bikini on, and do the table dance with the blonde wig on. Other than that - it could have been much better. I thought the combo of Michael Keaton and Katie would have made this movie much improved over Chasing Liberty (I also thought that movie was mediocre at best). But in the end, this movie was just okay. The ending was very disappointing also. There was no resolution except that she's got her whole life in front of her. I still consider Wonder Boys and Pieces of April as Katie's best work. I hope she's got something really redeeming up next. I'd hate for her to fall under the Ben Affleck curse (good looking, made some good movies, but then started making tons of terrible ones). We can only hope.

Samantha Mackenzie (Katie Holmes) has always been a sweet proper girl and the only daughter of the President (Michael Keaton). She is going off to college and the strict Secret Service protection doesn't always fit. She falls for student James Lansome (Marc Blucas). However the president is in his re-election campaign and James isn't who she thinks he is.

It's always odd to note that this was directed by Forest Whitaker, but he seems to like these light rom-coms. And this is the lightest of rom-com especially in the first half. Katie Holmes is playing a stiff character and isn't allowing the comedy to come through. The movie does improve slightly with the twist for about 15 minutes, but then it falls apart with a flat unimpressive ending.

Despite it being an interesting concept, it was quite poorly executed. While the plot twist did make it more interesting, little care was given to the 'solution' of the issue in the film,making the conclusions that the characters come to seem abrupt and out of place. Furthermore, I simply could not see any chemistry between the couple at all, making it hard to root for them.