'Irresistible' review: Jon Stewart's tepid political satire

Photo courtesy of Focus Features

Since retiring from hosting “The Daily Show” in 2015, Jon Stewart has mostly stayed away from the spotlight. When he has come up for air it has been to champion political rights and unofficially continue fighting for the left. Stewart’s outrage and bite are sadly missing from his new film “Irresistible”, a movie that tries to equally roast Democrats and Republicans but misses its target by playing things too safe.

Fellow “Daily Show” alum Steve Carell stars in “Irresistible” as Gary Zimmer, a Democratic political consultant who is just coming off a failed Hillary Clinton presidential run (the film takes place shortly after the 2016 election). While looking for a fresh angle to revive his mojo, an aide shows him a leaked video of retired Marine Colonel Jack Hastings (Chris Cooper) standing up for immigrants in small town Deerlaken, Wisconsin. Suddenly Gary sees a conservative-looking hero with the heart of a liberal and that’s all the incentive he needs to jump on a private jet and convince the apprehensive veteran to run for mayor and put Deerlaken on the national map.

That seemingly innocuous decision creates a huge domino effect as political strategists from both parties swarm the small town and turn what should’ve been a quiet mayoral race into a street fight. Focus groups, large ad spending and backstabbing are some of the dirty tricks the locals are subjected to and yet Stewart mostly plays them for meaningless laughs without sinking his teeth into ripe satire. Instead of having Gary explore the duplicitous side of politics, he has an on-again, off-again flirtation with Republican nemesis Faith Brewster (Rose Byrne) which goes nowhere and gets awkward fast. In fact, Gary has another flirtation with the Colonel’s daughter (Mackenzie Davis) which is somehow more awkward but at least the resolution of that thread makes for one of the movie’s biggest laughs.

“Irresistible” wants to be a political satire in the vein of “The Candidate”, “Wag the Dog” and “Veep”  but instead is a dumb movie made by smart people, and that may be the saddest part of this whole exercise. Proof of that is in the film’s final moments when political strategies come to a head and make for a clever reveal but by then it’s too little, too late. And if you stay through the end credits there’s also a final scene that shows Stewart boiling down the themes of his movie in just a few minutes. That quick clip is sharper than anything in “Irresistible” and makes you wish the preceding film were more of that and less teasing.

Rating: C+

“Irresistible” is now available to stream through video on demand.