ART CAN'T KEEP UP WITH LIFE IN `AMERICAN DREAMZ'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

Much like I feel in the voting booth every four years, the political satire ``American Dreamz'' rendered me frustrated and confused. It's the movie-watching equivalent of having to choose between a clueless, ineffectual Democrat and a delusional, monomaniacal Republican. The movie is not funny for the longest time, but has its occasional hilarious bits. There's a healthy amount of cynicism - appropriate enough for a piece about an illiterate president, a suicide bomber and the cultural black hole that is ``American Idol'' - but it rarely seems caustic enough. And then there's the basic problem of trying to make fun of current events in an era when, during the lag time between a film's conception and its release, reality just gets more bizarre than even a good comic filmmaker's imagination could have exaggerated.

Make no mistake, ``Dreamz'' writer-director Paul Weitz is one of the good ones. His films include ``American Pie,'' ``About a Boy'' and ``In Good Company.'' All were superior laughfests, with a solid sense of how we actually live now. ``Dreamz,'' by nature, is broader and more farcical. But it's also much more specifically about today's world, and often succumbs to the inherent risk in doing something like that: Much of it feels dated the moment it hits the screen.

Hugh Grant plays the unlovable Simon Cowell stand-in, Martin Tweed, host of the movie's hit show, also called ``American Dreamz.'' Dennis Quaid is the idiot President Staton who, fresh off a re-election landslide, decides to start reading newspapers for once in his life.

The resulting blast of unfiltered information (``Iran and North Korea are not like Dr. Octopus and Magneto!'' he wails in incredulous outrage causes a nervous breakdown.

In order to get the now-isolated president safely back in the public's eye, his creepy chief of staff (Willem Dafoe, looking like Cheney, acting like Rove) conspires to have Staton guest-judge the final round of the latest ``Dreamz'' competition. That's come down to a head-to-head between a ruthlessly amoral girl-next-door type, Mandy Moore's Sally Kendoo, and show-tune-loving Iraqi immigrant Omer (Sam Golzari). What nobody knows, including the affluent Orange County cousins he's staying with, is that Omer is a terrorist who's been assigned to blow himself up when the president shakes his hand on stage.

Perhaps the film's best joke is that Omer is, basically, the nicest person in the whole movie (he really is more comfortable murdering ``Chorus Line'' numbers). And his goofy relatives, who include Shohreh Aghdashloo as his loving, materialistic aunt, and Tony Yalda as his drama-queen cousin, come off as its most emblematically typical American family.

I'd say the other truly great performance prize goes to Moore. She captures the desperation of so many modern showbiz aspirants, whose passion for fame and success dwarfs their love of their chosen art, or indeed their ability to care at all about anyone else.

Wish the same could be said for Grant, Quaid and the people who play various flunkies, facilitators, loved ones and sworn enemies. Caricatures abound in ``Dreamz,'' and no amount of vapid song parodies or trenchant political observations can humanize them. And what are you going to do when your most outrageous fantasy of reality TV exploitation - Sally's clueless, wounded war vet boyfriend (Chris Klein) popping a surprise proposal right there on the broadcast - really happened on an episode of ``Deal or No Deal'' last week? Cultural satire is our reality now. No wonder it's hard for movies to keep up.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

AMERICAN DREAMZ - Two and one half stars

(PG-13: violence, language, sex)

Starring: Hugh Grant, Mandy Moore, Dennis Quaid, Sam Golzari, Chris Klein, Willem Dafoe.

Director: Paul Weitz.

Running time: 1 hr. 47 min. Playing: In wide release. In a nutshell: Hit-and-miss satire in which the president is stupid, an Arab terrorist makes it to the finals of an ``American Idol''-type competition, and we all wonder why they don't make 'em like ``Dr. Strangelove'' anymore.