# Dave (film)

Dave is a 1993 film about an affable temp agency owner with an uncanny resemblance to the U.S. President. To avoid a potentially explosive scandal when the President goes into a coma, he is put in his place.
    Directed by Ivan Reitman. Written by Gary Ross.

## Dave Kovic

* She's great. She's really exotic. She's a princess. She's Polynesian — well, half Polynesian, and half American. She's... Amnesian.
* [singing in the shower] Hail to the chief / He's the one we all say "Hail" to. / We all say "Hail" / 'Cause he keeps himself so clean! / He's got the power, / That's why he's in the shower...
* If you've ever seen the look on somebody's face the day they finally get a job, I've had some experience with this, they look like they could fly. And it's not about the paycheck, it's about respect, it's about looking in the mirror and knowing that you've done something valuable with your day. And if one person could start to feel this way, and then another person, and then another person, soon all these other problems may not seem so impossible. You don't really know how much you can do until you, stand up and decide to try.
* I forgot that I was hired to do a job for you and that it was just a temp job at that. I forgot that I had two hundred and fifty million people who were paying me to make their lives a little better and I didn't live up to my part of the bargain. See, there are certain things you should expect from a President. I ought to care more about you than I do about me... I ought to care more about what's right than I do about what's popular. I ought to be willing to give this whole thing up for something I believe in.

## Dialogue

    Alan Reed: Bob, at some point we're gonna have to call the Vice President.
    Bob Alexander: Don't call the Vice President.
    Alan Reed: What?
    Bob Alexander: Just don't call him, Al.
    Alan Reed: The guy's in a coma, Bob.
    Bob Alexander: I don't give a shit.
    Alan Reed: Bob.
    Bob Alexander: This is mine, Alan. All mine. I made him, I built him. And no Boy Scout is going to come in here and take it away from me, just because he happens to be Vice President of the United States.
    Dave: She hates Me.
    Alan Reed & Bob Alexander: Yes!
    Dave: So uh your job is to protect the president all the time, that's that's your whole job Right?
    Duane: Yes.
    Dave: Do you have a gun?
    Duane: Yes.
    Dave: You ever use it?
    Duane: Not yet.
    Dave: You know, I've always wondered about you guys. You know, about how you're trained to take a bullet for the president?
    Duane: What about it?
    Dave: Is that really true? I mean, would you let yourself be killed to save his life?
    Duane: Certainly.
    Dave: So, now that means you'd get killed for me too.
    Dave: [reviewing the budget] According to the OMB, we have seventeen defense contractors who are delinquent in their contracts. Is this true, Frank?
    Director of OMB: Uh, I believe so, yes.
    Dave: So, even though they're late, we keep paying them on time?
    Director of OMB: Well, in a sense... [glances at the cameras] Yeah.
    Dave: I don't want to tell some eight-year-old kid he's gotta sleep in the street because we want people to feel better about their car. Do you want to tell them that?
    Secretary of Commerce: No, sir. No, I sure don't.
    Bob Alexander: I'm going to kill him.
    Alan Reed: You can't kill a President.
    Bob Alexander: He's not a President. He's an ordinary person. I can kill an ordinary person.
    Alan Reed: Bob.
    Bob Alexander: I can kill a hundred ordinary people.
    Bob Alexander: What do you think you're doing?
    Dave: What? Oh, you mean the press conference. I had a couple of ideas that I wanted to share with the country.
    Bob Alexander: Share? Share? You don't call a press conference. I call a press conference. You're nothing. Do you understand? You're nobody.
    Dave: I'm not nobody.
    Bob Alexander: You're LINT! You're a FLEA! You're a BLIP!
    Dave: Well... maybe I am. But you're fired.
    Ellen Mitchell: [after Dave reveals his true identity to Ellen] So, what do you do for a living?
    Dave: You mean, when I'm not running the country?
    Ellen Mitchell: Yeah.
    Dave: I run a temp agency. You know, secretaries and stuff.
    Ellen Mitchell: So you find people jobs.
    Dave: Yes.
    [Ellen chuckles]
    Dave: What? What's so funny?
    Ellen Mitchell: It's just, it's more than most people do around here.

## Taglines

* In a country where anybody can become President, anybody just did.
* Dave Kovic was an ordinary guy who was asked to impersonate the President. When they gave him a chance to make the country better...he did.

## Cast

* Kevin Kline - Dave Kovic / Bill Mitchell
* Sigourney Weaver - Ellen Mitchell
* Frank Langella - Bob Alexander
* Kevin Dunn - Alan Reed
* Ving Rhames - Duane Stevenson
* Ben Kingsley - Vice-President Nance
* Charles Grodin - Murray Blum
* Stephen Root - Don Durenberger
* Tom Dugan - Jerry
* Faith Prince - Alice
* Laura Linney - Randi
* Bonnie Hunt - White House Tour Guide

## External links

* Dave quotes at the Internet Movie Database
* Dave at Rotten Tomatoes