My Fellow Americans is a 1996 Americanpoliticalcomedy film directed byPeter Segal. It starsJack Lemmon andJames Garner as feuding ex-presidents, withDan Aykroyd,Lauren Bacall,Esther Rolle,John Heard,Wilford Brimley,Bradley Whitford,Everett McGill, andJeff Yagher in supporting roles. The film is named after the sentence for the traditional opening ofpresidential addresses to the American people.

My Fellow Americans
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Peter Segal
Screenplay by	E. Jack Kaplan Richard Chapman Peter Tolan
Story by	E. Jack Kaplan Richard Chapman
Produced by	Jon Peters
Starring	Jack Lemmon James Garner Dan Aykroyd John Heard Wilford Brimley Everett McGill Bradley Whitford Lauren Bacall
Cinematography	Julio Macat
Edited by	William Kerr
Music by	William Ross
Production companies	Peters Entertainment Storyline Entertainment
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date	December 20, 1996 (1996-12-20)
Running time	101 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$21.5 million
Box office	$22.3 million[1]

Republicansenator Russell Kramer wins the presidential election, narrowly defeating archrivalDemocraticgovernor Matt Douglas. Four years later, Douglas wins a landslide victory over the now-incumbent Kramer. Another four years later, Kramer's former vice president, William Haney, defeats Douglas. Haney's vice president, Ted Matthews, is widely seen as an idiot, and becomes an embarrassment for the administration. Three more years later, Kramer is spending his time writing books and speaking at inconsequential functions, while Douglas is finishing his own book and getting divorced.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party learns about "Olympia", the codename for several bribes thatdefense contractor Charlie Reynolds paid Haney when he was vice president.DNC chairman Joe Hollis asks Douglas to investigate, offering the support of the Democrats for a presidential run in return for his help. Douglas accepts. Meanwhile, Haney and hisChief of Staff Carl Witnaur plot to frame Kramer for the scandal, despite Haney's private acknowledgment to Witnaur that Kramer had known nothing about it. When rumors begin to suggest that Kramer was involved in Olympia, he begins his own investigation.

NSA agent Colonel Tanner has Reynolds assassinated when he attempts to tell Douglas the truth about Olympia. Kramer arrives at the scene to find Douglas with Reynolds' body. Before they can flee, Douglas and Kramer are forced to boardMarine One by Tanner, who claims they will be taken toCamp David for their security at Haney's request. During the flight, Douglas realizes they are heading in the wrong direction. They force the pilots to land, disembarking just before the helicopter explodes.

Kramer and Douglas are left stranded, aware that the explosion was meant to kill them. They decide to go to Kramer'spresidential Library to obtain records themiserly Kramer kept of all meals served during his time in the White House, which will prove Haney was present at a key meeting with Reynolds. On the way, they meet various ordinary Americans and see the effects their terms in office have had. After several close encounters with NSA agents, they arrive at the library and discover the evidence has been tampered with to implicate Kramer. A guard gives Kramer a message from Reynolds' secretary stating that Witnaur had recently met with Reynolds. Douglas and Kramer kidnap Witnaur and with Hollis's help, force him to reveal the plot to frame Kramer, though Witnaur claims to know nothing about the attempts on their lives, blaming Tanner. Initially they decide to report Witnaur's confession to journalist Kaye Griffin, but Douglas, reflecting upon their adventure, convinces Kramer to go directly to the White House to confront Haney personally, seeing it as a chance of redemption for their poor choices as presidents.

They sneak into the White House with the help of theExecutive Chef and make it to theExecutive Residence but discover that Haney is giving a press conference outside. Tanner traps Douglas and Kramer in a guest room but they escape via a secret tunnel while the NSA gives chase. Tanner catches up with them and is about to shoot them when he himself is killed by aSecret Service sniper who has recognized the presidents from a chance encounter at a gay pride parade during their adventure.

Douglas and Kramer interrupt Haney's speech and take him to the Oval Office to talk. There they play Haney a tape of Witnaur's confession, but Haney denies knowledge of Reynolds' murder or the helicopter explosion. Haney agrees to resign and gives a resignation speech, citing heart problems. Douglas and Kramer muse that the idiotic Matthews will now become president and realize the only way it could have happened was under these circumstances. The pair confront Matthews, who admits his stupidity is just an act and that he, not Haney, had engineered the entire plot so that he could become president, knowing Haney would take the fall. Douglas secretly tapes his confession, and Matthews goes to prison.

Nine months later, Douglas and Kramer are running together asindependents in the presidential election, arguing which of them will be the nominee for president. Douglas distracts Kramer by throwing a dollar on the floor, and grabs the microphone to announce himself as the presidential candidate, much to Kramer's chagrin.

The film had initially been written forWalter Matthau andJack Lemmon before the Matthau role ultimately went toJames Garner due to Matthau vacating for health reasons.^[2][3] In an interview withVariety, Garner stated both he and Lemmon had wanted to work together for a long time and saw the film as an opportunity to do so.^[4] The character ofDNC Chair Joe Hollis was initially to be played byDaniel Benzali, but left the role due to scheduling conflicts with his seriesMurder One and was replaced withWilford Brimley.^[4] According to Garner, the film was keptapolitical with no real life presidents, current or past, mentioned by name nor were the characters based on any real life administrations.^[4]

Most of the principal filming for the film was done in the mountains of western North Carolina. Scenes were filmed along theBroad River where it flows intoLake Lure inRutherford County,Dillsboro, along theGreat Smoky Mountains Railroad;Waynesville, where a giant clown sign crashes through their windshield as they try to flee and where they find the baby in the stolen car is inMarshall, North Carolina; and inAsheville, at theBiltmore Estate.^[5]

In Asheville, North Carolina, the downtown area stands in for an unnamed town in West Virginia. There, theWestern Carolina University Marching Band portrays the "All Dorothy Marching Band" (a fictional group based onDorothy Gale inThe Wizard of Oz), at agay pride parade.^[6] The film depicts mostly positive (for the time) gay characters, perhaps a little cliched, but overall portraying LGBT people as helpful, decent, upstanding American citizens.

In his memoirs, Garner wrote that he enjoyed working with Lemmon but felt Segal "was a self appointed genius who didn't know his ass from second base and Jack and I both knew it."^[7]

My Fellow Americans received mixed reviews from critics. It holds a 47% rating onRotten Tomatoes based on 60 reviews and with an average rating of 5.3/10 and the critical consensus: "It doesn't commit any impeachable offenses, butMy Fellow Americans lacks strong regulatory oversight of its toothless political satire and misuse of comedic talent."^[8]

Roger Ebert of theChicago Sun-Times praised Lemmon and Garner, but felt the film was "a series of cheap shots and missed opportunities". However, he said that "a lot of the cheap shots are funny, and maybe the climate is wrong for sharply barbed political satire. I dunno. This is not a great comedy and will be soon forgotten, but it has nice moments."^[9]James Berardinelli ofReelViews also complimented the actors, writing "Lemmon and Garner slip comfortably into their roles" and saying the movie has "some good one-liners", but he criticized the "failed attempts to inject embarrassingly trite melodrama and recycled action sequences into the story" and also felt the political satire was "weak and obligatory".^[10]Mick LaSalle of theSan Francisco Chronicle describedMy Fellow Americans as a "pleasing but mediocre film, with a great cast, a great story and a misguided script."^[11]

• My Fellow Americans atIMDb
• My Fellow Americans at theTCM Movie Database
• My Fellow Americans at theAFI Catalog of Feature Films
• My Fellow Americans atRotten Tomatoes
• James Garner InterviewArchived 2008-01-03 at theWayback Machine onThe Charlie Rose Show
• James Garner interview atArchive of American Television