Problem: positive
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Answer: Good for an evening's entertainment - but the plot was unconvincing. Garrison's affair with the First Lady was unreal and passionless; the President was a cardboard cut-out. And who were the real villains anyway? Nothing was developed or explained sufficiently. I still don't know why they wanted to kill the President or how the mole got involved. The villains were nameless and undeveloped, so you never felt involved in their plot. Michael Douglas and Kiefer Sutherland did their best to inject some reality into the story - the chase and confrontation were good. But Kim Basinger and Eva Longoria were both unbelievable in their roles, Basinger totally lacked character and no way could Longoria have been a Secret Service agent. This could have been a very good film but somehow it missed the way, with too many unanswered questions. Disappointing on the whole despite some very good scenes. And did they use the 'West Wing' set for the White House scenes? - I kept expecting CJ or Charlie to appear!

Problem: negative
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Answer: Woody Allen has lost his ability to write dialogue or characters that are clearly distinguishable from each other. This is the case with "Melinda and Melinda," where all the characters speak with Allen's generic pseudo-sophistication and have problems and points of view that are not relatable to anyone outside of a four block radius of where Allen lives. They also share the same curious condition of being able to afford multi-million dollar Manhattan apartments that appear to have been designed by professional decorators regardless of their financial situation or what they do for a living.

The only character who exists outside of this dull mindset is Will Ferrel as the obligatory Woody Allen surrogate. Although he does not simply come off as merely doing a Woody Allen impression (like Kenneth Branagh in the god-awful "Celebrity"), Ferrel lacks the charm or charisma that the real Woody had when he was playing the part himself in his best movies.

The end result is another in a string of self indulgent bores from a once-great filmmaker who has been trading in on his former reputation for years.

Problem: negative
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Answer:
This movie is a bad memory from my childhood. This is one of those movies that they show kids on a rainy day at school when you can't go out for recess, and you'd rather be watching anything, ANYTHING else. At least that's what it was like when I was in elementary school. I just remember HATING this movie. Granted, I haven't seen it in 15 years or so, and they probably don't use it on rainy days anymore but I just want to warn everyone: You'd be better off using this to put your kids to sleep than entertaining them. Trust me, pick anything else. Even though the topic is kind of controversial, the plot is so tame and slow that I can't remember anything about it except that I disliked it so strongly that here, 15 years later, I felt the need to warn all of you against it.