I give it three stars for good intentions and an A list cast. The dramatic aspect is negligible. I was bored half way through this by-the-numbers political satire that sacrifices action for tedious plot exposition in the form of talk talk talk. The Bush analogy is painfully obvious, and doesn't help the overall gestalt.

[***SPOILERS***] Really, the 2 is generous. This is easily the worst movie I have seen in years, and I see a lot of movies (avg. 2/week). I'm quite a John Sayles fan, and not a tough critic, but this was really just misery. The acting and timing were as of a bad high school play, especially Danny Huston. Darryl Hannah was good, and her character was pretty funny. Chris Cooper did a great George Bush impression. Sayles' message seems to be that the only way to expose the evils of the Republican party or the conservative ideology is to portray conservatives as flat, emotionless, idiots who are either conniving or retarded, but not both. The "righteous" characters weren't much better ... just shallow, well-meaning, boring folks. I could go on and on, but I'll just make specific mention of two of my favorite ridiculous moments (these are SPOILERS, so don't read them if you haven't yet been convinced to avoid this movie). 1) When Danny (remember, he's Mr. sensitive and intelligent liberal thinker) tries to talk to the two Mexican dudes about the murder and they show the slightest hesitation, his first instinct is to threaten to call immigration! How creative, Danny. How very sensitive! Er, or did I mean, racist?! 2) When Danny falls into the water inside the mountain and comes across the toxic waste in the form of *actual* large, yellow barrels marked (snicker) "toxic." It was like an episode of Scooby Doo!! Plus, he suffered zero ill effects from having swum around among those barrels. I wouldn't have let the dude in my car after that one, but he didn't even seem inclined to go take a shower! Seriously, folks. Don't see this. It's not even funny-bad. It's just bad-bad. If you like John Sayles, just see Lone Star or Sunshine State again ... don't let this one tarnish the good image of a perfectly good director.… Expand

Great flick. I find it interesting that the Metacritic score quite accurately reflects John Kerry's current poll standings. Reviews always look like this when there is a political bent to a movie.