Director Ivan Reitman lives up to his name by getting everything right in this triumphant treatment of the old dual-identity theme. Gary Ross's magic screenplay never puts a foot wrong in its development of the story of a presidential impersonator, Dave (Kevin Kline), who runs a temp agency one moment, and the White House the next. Dave's ascent to the Oval Office is the brainchild of Chief of Staff Frank Langella, who seems to have the nation's interests at heart when Dave's double, The Prez himself, has a stroke while bedding a White House secretary. The Vice-President (Ben Kingsley) apparently has a screw loose, so it's Dave for the hot seat. You'd never think that Dave would fool his staff, never mind the First Lady (Sigourney Weaver). But he has a double edge: he's polished his Presidential act to studied perfection, and Weaver hates 'his' guts and wants nothing to do with him. It soon turns out that Langella's the second biggest crook around after the old President, and has had Kingsley put out of the way on an eastern tour to further his plans in inherit the Presidency for himself. It won't surprise you to find that things don't work out the way the bad guys expect, but you'll get constant pleasure from the way it's done.

©ipc tx. Film content from TVTimes