Director Herbert Ross attempts to look back with anger and insight on the political and moral bankruptcy of the Reaganite Eighties.

But it was perhaps a mistake to take on the subject so soon after the end of the decade.

The result is a film that condemns the actions of its characters but doesn't begin to analyse the decade's corrupted me-first, greed-is-good values.

John Cusack is a social-climbing charmer who vows to his law school friend James Spader that he will be elected to Congress within 10 years.

How he hot-foots it to the top via trickery, blackmail and betrayal makes up the core of the action, but Cusack's character is weighed down with too much symbolic baggage to be totally convincing.

Most of the other roles and performances are one-dimensional despite the excellence of the supporting cast.